


Force Outcasts

by andthatisterrible



Series: Force Outcasts [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, F/F, Star Wars AU, shoot with lightsabers and the force!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-06-27 11:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19789867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andthatisterrible/pseuds/andthatisterrible
Summary: After Shaw was cast out by the Jedi Order when she was a child, she went and built a life for herself and learned the ways of the Force on her own. Years later, a salvage job at an ancient Jedi temple leads her to cross paths with a disgruntled Jedi Knight and a mysterious woman who wields the Force but is neither a Jedi nor a Sith.Shoot Star Wars AU!





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in _a_ star wars universe, not really _the_ canon star wars universe. I figured I could either go overboard researching every little fact and timeline and sorting out the movie universe and the expanded universe until my eyes bled, or I could just write something fun in a world that felt like star wars. I took some creative license with the Force and some other aspects of the star wars universe because this is fanfic and I can do what I want. If you're here for shoot with lightsabers and sweet space magic then hopefully you won't be disappointed.
> 
> This 4 chapter fic is already completely written. It's kind of an introductory story that's intended to be part of a larger series, with this fic as the first bit. I'll be adding it to a collection so I can write further stories after.
> 
> Also this has gotta have the dumbest title ever. After two straight days of not being able to think of one I just said fuck it and wrote down the first thing that came to mind.

The humid jungle air pressed in on Shaw from all sides even as she twisted the speeder bike's handles to make it go faster. The rush of air against her face provided only the smallest bit of relief from the heavy dampness and Shaw could feel sweat soaking through her shirt despite it. She gritted her teeth and adjusted her goggles with one hand. The considerable amount of credits this job was paying barely made it worth this bullshit.

The trees whipped by her on both sides, the foliage dense and almost impenetrable for someone on foot. There'd been nowhere remotely near the temple to safely land her ship so she'd had to leave it in a clearing a good jump away and take the speeder the rest of the way in. She wasn't crazy about leaving her ship unguarded in the middle of a hostile jungle planet, but only an idiot would have tried to land in the forest here.

Which was why she was surprised when, upon coming into sight of the ruined stone temple, she saw another ship. Whoever had landed it had done a terrible job. The trees were all leveled around it and there was smoke rising from several parts of the craft. Shaw wasn't sure the wreck could even take off anymore.

She slowed her speeder down to a crawl as she got closer. It'd be nice to ride all the way to the entrance, but if someone else was in the area she didn't want them hearing her approach and the hovering bike was too loud to be missed. She found a thick clump of trees to stash the speeder behind and jumped down to the ground. Her feet sank into the wet soil and, with the slight breeze the speeder had provided gone, the humidity felt a million times worse. Best to take care of this job quickly and get out of there so she could go back to enjoying the temperature controlled luxury of her ship.

She took a moment to breathe and then rolled her shoulders back and shut her eyes. In moments like these, she fell back on her training from her earliest lessons. She reached out with the Force, letting her awareness spread through the world around her. The forest was full of life, energy pouring through it from all the plants and creatures. It made it a little harder to narrow down what she was looking for, but yes, there definitely was something--or rather, someone--up ahead. Just one sentient life form as far as she could tell, possibly human. One human wouldn't be too much of a problem. She was about to open her eyes again when she felt something else, like an odd flicker in the Force that she couldn't quite pin down, but it was gone before she could decipher it.

Something else was out there.

A clattering noise from behind her broke her focus and she turned around to see B34R, her droid, clambering down from the back of her speeder. B34R had started life as a standard astromech droid, but Shaw had tinkered with him over the years, first adding in two little antenna 'ears' (for lack of a better word) on top of his head, and then four short but sturdy legs so he could handle stairs, and then reworking his entire body so he was better balanced for moving on four legs. The result had left him looking not unlike some canine species she'd come across. She'd also spent a good bit of time and credits upgrading his software and functionality to make him more useful on missions.

"We've got company here," she told him. "At least one other person and maybe something else, so be careful."

B34R beeped and whistled in confirmation.

"And turn your volume down."

He beeped much more softly this time. Shaw patted him on top of his head, a habit she'd picked up at some point and been unable to shake.

She left her helmet and goggles strapped to her speeder and set off towards the temple. Even with his legs, it was slow-going for B34R, but she figured having a second set of 'eyes' might come in handy so she took her time and helped clear a path for him as best she could.

The temple was an enormous half-collapsed mess of huge grey slabs of stone, covered by moss and vines. Yet another ancient Jedi temple left to rot in the wilderness. She wasn't sure why so many of them had been built on remote, inhospitable planets, or why they all seemed to have some residual artifacts that collectors would pay handsomely for, but this was the fifth one she'd looted in the last two years. They were usually easy jobs, paid very well, and had the added bonus of sending the pompous oafs in the Jedi Council into rages over the procurement of artifacts they felt should belong solely to them. The one time she'd accepted a call from someone on the Council, they'd blathered on about responsibility and how knowledge should belong to all Force wielders and not be stashed away in some wealthy buyer's collection. It was an argument that would have held a little more weight with her if they hadn't kicked her out of the Jedi Order when she was twelve and denied her that same knowledge.

She'd terminated their call, mid rant.

She reached the edge of the temple wall and looked around for an entrance while B34R caught up to her. The main entrance had collapsed long ago, that much she'd been able to discern from her ship, but there'd been several other openings that'd looked promising. The nearest one was a doorway on the side of the main structure that was mostly blocked by a few large chunks of stone that had fallen. She wiped the sweat off her face with the bottom of her shirt as she considered her options. It would have been easy to use the Force to clear the way, but if the other intruder happened to see, they'd know about her powers and she'd rather not have that getting out. Also if the other person was Force sensitive they'd potentially be able to feel her moving the blocks (and while she'd gotten quite good at obfuscating her powers she'd rather not risk it unless there was no other choice). Using a detonator to blast the stone out of the way would also have been easy, but very loud and ran the risk of causing a cave in rather than opening the way.

"Think you could pull one of these?" she asked B34R.

He whistled an affirmative and made his way over to the first stone block. A tiny hatch opened on the side of his casing and a thick steel wire with a suction cup at the end shot out and latched onto the stone. Shaw watched as he started dragging the block out of the way slowly but surely.

"You keep at it. I'll be right back."

She was careful to remain as inconspicuous as possible while approaching the poorly parked ship around the corner of the temple from them. No telling where its captain was. The ship definitely looked familiar now that she was close to it and she rolled her eyes. This guy again. Well, that explained the crash landing. She stuck a tiny tracking device on the bottom of one of the wings, though she wondered again if the ship could even take off in its current state. Landing it in the jungle hadn't been a good move. She gave herself a few extra minutes to examine the exterior of the ship and poke around at a few things...just in case.

B34R was working on the second block when she got back. She peeled off her jacket (it was too hot for it out here but it kept her arms and neck protected from any potentially venomous plants or bugs) and set to work pushing while B34R pulled. She was even more drenched in sweat by the time they'd opened a wide enough passage into the temple.

The temple corridor felt pleasantly cool by comparison, out of the heat of the twin suns that beat down on the planet. Shaw pulled her jacket back on as she walked. It was still too warm for it, but there were good reasons to wear it anyway, even beyond protection from insects. The hall was relatively clear with only a few fallen stone blocks to clamber over.

"If you were an ancient space monk with a stick up your ass, where would you hide your valuables?" she asked B34R.

He gave a few confused beeps.

"No, I meant the Jedi who used to run this place. If there's really still something worth stealing all these years later, it must have been sealed up good."

A small scanner popped out of the top of B34R's head and swiveled in a circle. He gave a few soft trills and beeps when he finished.

"Yeah, whatever it is didn't show up on the ship scanner either. Maybe it's closer to the center." The center of the temple should theoretically have been the safest place to store things, but she'd never been one to credit Jedi with having much common sense. Still, it wasn't like she had a better idea.

When she came to an intersection in the corridor that split into three separate paths, she paused and shut her eyes again. This whole place felt slightly _off_ to her, a feeling which only grew as she reached out with the Force. There was definitely something here besides the other thief, something that almost felt alive. She opened her eyes and chose the path to her left without letting herself think about why too much. If there was one thing she hated about the Force it was the way it pushed her to act on instinct rather than logic.

She was halfway down the hall when she started hearing noises from up ahead. It sounded like someone was smashing boulders together. She rolled her eyes. She knew exactly who that had to be.

"Stay here and watch my back," she whispered to B34R and he beeped an acknowledgement and trotted into the shadows.

The hallway opened out into a large room that she guessed might have been the main hall of the temple at some point. There were holes in the high ceiling where pieces of stone had fallen away over the years and sunlight filtered down through them to illuminate the space. Across from her were broad steps leading up to a small stone building of some sort that was nestled inside the temple. There was a tall man in a brown robe in front of the small structure with a large boulder suspended in the air in front of him, and he was using the Force to ram the boulder into the sealed door. He didn't seem to have noticed her yet.

She crept along the far wall, keeping a bit of distance between them (though she doubted he could hear her over the stone smashing), pulled her blaster from her belt holster, and switched it to stun mode. The last thing she needed was adding the murder of a Jedi Knight to her list of crimes.

She'd known that he was a lot more dangerous than he seemed, but she was still surprised by how quickly the man dodged out of the way of her blaster bolt and spun around to face her, lightsaber out and glowing green.

"Shaw."

"Long time, no see, Reese."

Reese's stance didn't relax at all, but he looked a little less on guard. Maybe. It was hard to tell with his stoic expression.

"I see the Council still has you running errands," she said. She hadn't lowered her blaster yet. John Reese was okay for a Jedi, if a bit of a blunt instrument, but he was still a Jedi and there was no love lost there. She'd run into him a few times before on similar scavenging missions, and while their interactions hadn't been exactly cordial, they'd managed to avoid trying to murder each other.

"I see you're still pillaging sacred Jedi sites," he retorted.

"I'm not the one smashing things."

Reese looked at where the large block he'd been using had fallen and shrugged. "Fair enough, but you're not going to fool me into thinking you just happened to wander in here for no reason."

"It was hot outside."

The corner of Reese’s mouth twitched slightly. “You’re free to give me a hand if you want, but you’re not getting what’s in there.”

“And what might that be?” The bounty instructions had been somewhat vague. There’d been rumors of some ancient Jedi artifacts buried in this temple, some type of scrolls or tablets most likely. Usually her directions were a little more clear, but the reward offered had been high enough that she’d been willing to take the job despite the vagueness. Now, sweating buckets in the middle of the jungle and facing off with a Jedi Knight, she was starting to regret that, especially since whatever that weird life force she'd felt earlier was, it definitely was in that stone building.

Reese grimaced. “Honestly? I’m not even sure.”

Shaw snorted. “Guess the Jedi really aren’t all-knowing after all.” She lowered her blaster but didn’t relax otherwise. She didn’t trust Reese, but her arm was starting to hurt and she still had the advantage of distance over him.

“I’d think you of all people would know that already,” Reese said.

Shaw narrowed her eyes. That was the first time she’d heard Reese admit to some fault with the Jedi Order. Had something happened to shake his faith in them? Maybe she should do some snooping once she finished up this little mission.

“Well, don’t let me stop you from banging rocks together,” she said, waving a hand at the boulder on the ground. “I’ll just watch.”

“Somehow I have a hard time believing that.”

“Yeah, thought you might.”

They both stood there in silence in the humid jungle heat, eyeing each other suspiciously. In the distance, Shaw could hear the sounds of some jungle animal screeching in the woods. She really hoped this awkward standoff didn’t last too long; she was ready to have a shower and a nap.

“I think that maybe you should go back to your ship,” Reese said finally.

“Hmm, don’t think I can do that.”

“I guess you’re not leaving me any options.”

Shaw had been ready for Reese to strike, so she was already moving when he raised his hand. She felt the Force pushing at her as Reese tried to throw her backwards with it, but she brought her own hand up to repel the attack, pushing back against his power. Reese frowned and pushed a little harder, but she adjusted and held him back while slowly taking steps forwards.

She tried very hard to avoid using the Force where others could see her, but this was something she’d learned in her early days of training so perhaps Reese would think it was a leftover skill from back then and not something she’d worked hard at perfecting on her own. She really didn’t want the Council finding out just how skilled she’d gotten over the years, but damned if she was going to let some idiot Jedi throw her around like a sack of spare parts.

A noise from above caught both their attention and they both broke off their attacks to look up. A shadow moved across one of the openings in the ceiling and then a figure dropped down through a hole, did a perfect flip in mid-air, and landed with a flourish on the top of the stone building Reese had been trying to break into. The figure unfolded itself from its landing pose and stood upright and now Shaw could see she was a tall, skinny woman with long brown hair that she expertly flipped back over her shoulder. She was dressed from head to toe in black clothes that must have been extra uncomfortable in the jungle heat and held what was unmistakably a lightsaber handle in one hand. She was also grinning in a slightly unnerving way.

Great, this was just what Shaw needed--another crazy Jedi Knight.

“You got a partner now, Reese?” she asked.

The new woman’s smile grew wider.

Reese took a few steps to the side so he could keep an eye on Shaw and the newcomer both. “Never seen her before in my life.”

“Sorry to barge in like this,” the woman said, “but there’s something here I’m looking for.”

Shaw had no doubts that whatever this woman was after was the same thing she and Reese had been sent here to find. What the hell could be so valuable that three Force wielders would show up looking for it at the same time?

“You’re not a Jedi.” Reese sounded certain.“Who do you serve?”

The woman’s smile turned contemptuous. “I answer to no one, Jedi.” The amount of scorn she put in the last word was slightly gratifying to Shaw, but also a little troubling. If she truly wasn’t a Jedi, almost all the other options were worse.

“Sith,” Reese said, with certainty and switched his focus to her. It was slightly presumptuous of him to think Shaw wouldn’t use this opportunity to attack him, but he wasn’t completely wrong in his assumption. If this woman was truly Sith then it couldn’t hurt if Shaw had Reese acting like a large moving target to take the brunt of her attacks. She could mop up whichever of them survived the mess.

“Nice try, but also wrong,” the woman said.

“Who the hell are you then?” Reese asked.

The woman tilted her head to one side. “You can just call me Root.” She activated her lightsaber and the air crackled as a violently bright pink blade hummed to life.

“Seriously?” Shaw couldn’t help herself. Who had a _pink_ lightsaber?

Root’s attention flicked to her momentarily before resettling on Reese. “Don’t tell me the one you have hidden under your jacket is a standard, boring, Jedi-approved color, Sameen Shaw.”

Shaw worked very hard to not let her surprise show on her face. “I’m not a Jedi, so why would I have a lightsaber?” She saw Reese glance at her uncertainly.

“Well, I’m not a Jedi, either, and yet.” Root motioned at her own blade with her free hand. “But fine, we’ll play it your way. We can discuss it after I finish with your friend here.” And, without waiting for an answer, she did a flip off of the stone structure and landed in front of Reese in a low crouch. She swung her lightsaber at him in a wide arc as she stood up and there was a hiss as their blades met. Reese took a few steps backwards in the face of the fast, erratic swings that Root leveled at him.

She was self-trained, that much was easy for Shaw to tell. Very fast and powerful, but lacking the artful finesse and flourish that was taught at the Jedi Academy these days. Shaw watched as they clashed, blades crossing, over and over as they tested each other. She wondered if she should intervene or just wait for it all to play out. A flash of movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention and she turned to see B34R peeking into the room. The little recorder she’d installed in him was poking out of the top of his head, aimed at the fighting on the other side of the room. Getting an image of this Root person was good thinking on B34R’s part. If they all got out of here alive, Shaw intended to find out exactly how Root had known her name.

A crackling noise drew her attention back to the fight and she saw Reese fall to the floor, his face a grimace of pain from the blue lightning wrapped around him. Root might claim not to be a Sith, but Shaw knew Dark Side powers when she saw them. Interesting.

Content that Reese was taken care of for the moment, Root turned towards her, lightsaber held lazily in one hand.

“I imagine if I try to open the inner sanctum now you’ll shoot me in the back,” she said as she approached.

“You can always give it a try and find out.”

“Hmm, I think not.” She brought her lightsaber up, ready to fight, and looked at Shaw expectantly.

There was no way she was getting out of this, Shaw realized. The best she could hope was that Reese was out cold or in too much pain to be paying attention. Resigned, she pulled her lightsaber out from under her jacket and ignited the blade. Blue was technically one of the standard saber colors that the Jedi Order were so keen on for whatever reason, but not the deep, vibrant bluish-purple that Shaw had gone for.

“I wasn’t sure you were going to be here,” Root said as she looked over Shaw's blade with a smirk. “But I’m very glad you are. I’m kind of a big fan.”

“Can’t say the feeling is mutual.”

Shaw attacked without warning, hoping to incapacitate Root before she had a chance to retaliate. Root was ready for her though and their blades crossed with a hiss. Shaw pushed hard against Root’s saber, forcing her to focus on holding her back and judging her strength at the same time. Shaw was definitely physically stronger than Root, but they felt fairly evenly matched in Force power (though of course it wasn’t impossible that Root was hiding her true strength, much the way Shaw was trying to).

The flicker of awareness she felt through the Force was the only warning she got. She jumped back into the hallway where B34R had been hiding just in time to avoid the heavy blocks falling from the ceiling above. Reese must have recovered while they were fighting and he was bringing down parts of the ceiling to try and crush them under the stones. The blocks continued to fall, slamming into the ground and sending dust and dirt everywhere. Shaw stumbled further back into the hallway with B34R besides her. There was movement to her left and she turned to see that somehow Root was beside her as well, still alive and looking relatively unharmed. There was a slight ripple in the air around Root and Shaw suddenly understood how she’d gotten away unharmed. Interesting, as physical shielding techniques were usually taught as Light Side powers. Maybe Root used a mix of both? Just who was she?

The heavy stones continued to fall until the entire entrance to the hall was covered. Shaw could still hear the sound of more and more stones falling on the other side.

“Well, that was clever of him,” Root said next to her in the darkness. “Though I have my doubts about whether or not he’ll be able to get into the inner sanctum.”

“Into the what?”

“The structure he was trying to force his way into like a particularly ungraceful bantha. It’s where some...artifacts of this temple were stored and it’s sealed up tight.”

“You’re after whatever’s in there, too.” Not that she’d had any doubts about that.

B34R turned on a light on his chassis, illuminating the area in an eerie red glow. Root looked down at the droid.

“Cute. Love the ears.”

Shaw wasn’t sure if she was being mocked but she scowled all the same. “How the hell do you know so much about me? Who are you?”

Root clipped her lightsaber hilt back on her belt, apparently unconcerned about Shaw attacking her now, and examined the pile of rocks in front of them. No light from the other side could be seen at all anymore. Even in the dim red glow lighting the hall, Shaw could see Root's long, graceful fingers as she poked at the rocks. She hadn't had much time to get a good look at Root earlier, but now, even in the dim light, she could get a better look at her. It just figured that the most attractive person she'd seen in far too long was also annoyingly smug and possibly extremely dangerous. Though the dangerous part had possibilities….

“I told you, I’m Root. Beyond that you don’t need to know.” Root's response snapped Shaw's attention back to their situation and she regretfully stopped admiring the way Root was bent over to look at the rocks.

Root held up a hand and Shaw felt a slight flicker from the Force before there was a rumbling and shifting in the rocks in front of Root. “As for how I know about you, well, let’s just say I make it my business to know about other Force wielders. Especially ones like me."

"Who said I'm anything like you?" Shaw didn’t think anyone in the galaxy knew about her lightsaber other than B34R (and she knew he hadn’t told). She never used it unless there were no other options and so far the only fights she’d been in with it had been fights to the death. There was no way Root should have been able to get any sort of information about her.

Root relaxed her pose and the rocks all fell back into place. “You're the only other one like me in the galaxy, Shaw. Did you think I wouldn't take an interest?" Shaw shifted uncomfortably at that. "Now are you going to help me with this, or are we just going to let the big lug carry off the prize?”

Shaw wasn't comfortable with how quickly Root had assumed they’d ended up on the same side, but it made sense given their situation and she could get behind that. Still….

“What makes you think I can help at all?”

Root scoffed. “Please. Don’t insult my intelligence, Shaw. I know you’re a very strong Force wielder the same way I knew you had a lightsaber. You’re probably stronger than your friend John out there, aren’t you?”

“If you know anything about me then you know I was kicked out of the Jedi Academy when I was a kid. Anyone can hack together a lightsaber, but it doesn’t make them a Jedi.”

Root turned around to look her up and down. “Well, you’re not a Jedi, now are you?” She took a step towards Shaw and Shaw took a step back without meaning to, bumping into B34R who beeped indignantly. “You’re too good to be wasted on the stuffy old Jedi Order, so you’re something else. Like me.”

Like her. There the comparison was again. Shaw was annoyed at herself for the spark of interest it stirred in her. She considered her words carefully before she spoke. “If you know so much, you must know why I got kicked out of the Academy.”

Root shrugged. “I couldn't find any details.”

“Where were you even looking?”

Root just looked smug. “I can guess, though.” She took another step towards Shaw and this time Shaw let her. “All the stories I’ve heard about you say you’ve got a cool head in combat, focused and calm, to an unnatural degree. I think one of the Jedi Councillors called you devoid of emotions." Shaw had a few guesses about which Councillor had said that, but Root was still talking.

"Now the Jedi talk a big game about controlling your emotions and all that nonsense, but I can’t imagine they’d be thrilled about someone who could do that naturally. It would probably scare all those silly old men to pieces, not to mention make them extremely jealous. No, much better if you never got a chance to outshine them.” She took another step closer so there was almost no space between them and looked down at Shaw with that smug little smile of hers. Shaw was really starting to hate that smile. She wanted to wipe it off Root's obnoxious face with her fist or...maybe some other way. The close together, she was extremely aware of every little detail of Root, from the sweat at her temples, to the almost-healed scrape on her face that seemed to accentuate her cheekbones, to her slightly-parted lips. It was a bit distracting.

But Root’s ‘guess’ was a little too spot on for Shaw to believe it was only a guess, and the unease that caused kept her thoughts on track. She must have gotten the information from someone on the Jedi Council, or maybe there were records? Now was right about the time that Shaw should be shooting this very dangerous woman with too much information in the head and getting the hell out of there, and yet she didn’t make a move for her blaster, her eyes still locked on Root’s.

She didn’t break eye contact, but reached out with the Force as subtly as she was able to try and get any sort of clue as to just what Root was up to. Root had definitely shielded herself in some way to prevent just this sort of inspection, but Shaw could still pick up faint impressions of the woman standing inches away from her--Root felt powerful, dangerous, wild, uncontrollable, as erratic as the lightning she’d used on Reese earlier. And there was something else behind all of that, hidden from Shaw’s senses. She tried to focus on it.

“Like what you see?” Root asked, her voice mocking and...suggestive? Had she leaned forwards more?

Shaw pulled her awareness back, annoyed at being caught. "You're wrong you know. About part of it, anyway." She took an actual step back as well, hoping to defuse some of the tension in the air.

"Which part?"

"The Jedi Council wasn't worried I'd be better than them or anything. They were worried that I had no emotions that they could use to control me with. The Council definitely likes keeping the Jedi on a tight leash, and they're just as guilty of manipulating people as the Sith are." The Jedi were better than the Sith in that they didn't support the Empire and were less prone to slaughtering innocents, but they were far from perfect.

"They realized they couldn't control you," Root said thoughtfully. "Yes, I can see that."

"Great, mystery solved. Now can we get on with moving these rocks?" She realized as she said it that she was agreeing to help Root clear the hall, but she also didn't have much of a choice here. And since Root already knew she could use the Force, well, it might be nice to show off for once. Also considering the way Root kept openly staring at her with a very intent expression, Shaw got the impression that she was also hoping for a little show.

"Hmm, yes, I suppose we should, though I don't think John has made much progress over there." Root considered her for another long second. "You're even more fascinating than I'd hoped."

Shaw shifted restlessly under her gaze and turned back to the rock pile. "Whatever. Let's get this over with."

She tuned out Root's response and instead focused on the rocks in front of her. Learning to feel the Force in the world around her had been the first lesson she'd received as a child. It surrounded and bound together everything in the world, a powerful essence that was neither inherently good nor evil but instead shaped by the will of the one who wielded it. She could feel the corridor around her, the ancient stone walls that had once been full of bustling life. There was still life here--small rodents and insects lived in the cracks and corners of the temple and she could feel every one of them. Behind her, B34R was a familiar presence--not alive in the same way she was, but not quite not alive either--and next to her was the raw, enticing energy she was coming to associate with Root.

Life forms stood out like beacons to the Force, but even the lifeless rocks in front of her were surrounded by it and she could use that to move them. Hopefully. She knew she was more than powerful enough and that ultimately the size and weight of what she was trying to move didn't matter, but she didn't get to actively use her Force powers nearly often enough.

And she'd _never_ used her powers in tandem with another Force wielder.

She let Root start and she could almost see how Root manipulated the Force in her mind's eye, like brightly shining strands weaving around the rocks. As with her fighting skills earlier, Root lacked the elaborate grace that trained Jedi had, but there was still something calculated and elegant about her powers. She wondered if Root was being overly deliberate in her Force channeling or if she just found her methods easy to read, because it took her no effort to see what Root was trying to accomplish and work in step with her, each of them moving rocks out of the way in a simple and yet complex pattern. They worked separately and yet their movements seemed to complement each other, each making it easier for the other to proceed.

"Where'd you learn how to use the Force?" Shaw stole enough attention away from her task to ask.

"I'm like you, Shaw. I taught myself." If Root was straining at all, Shaw couldn't hear it in her voice.

"Bullshit. You had to have started from somewhere. Someone gave you some kind of lessons." Though she thought she could remember feeling a connection to the Force before the Jedi had found her.

"Not really. I did torture a Jedi Knight into giving me some pointers later on, but mostly I figured it out myself through trial and error."

Shaw wasn't sure how to take the causal mention of torture, but it wasn't like she hadn't broken a few fingers (and much worse) to get information in her life. She'd never considered there might be another Force wielder who wasn't with the Sith or the Jedi out running around the galaxy. Another Force wielder like herself. She absolutely needed to find a way to continue this conversation later.

There were thin beams of light coming through the holes in the rocks now and Shaw could once again hear the smashing noises of Reese trying to break into the inner sanctum, as Root had called it. Surely there had to be a better way, but Reese tended to attack problems head on.

Shaw focused on moving the rocks as quietly as she could, though she wasn't sure Reese would be able to hear them over his own noise. Once there was enough room to crawl through back into the main hall, they both stopped and looked at each other.

"Ladies first," Root said, waving a hand at the opening.

Shaw snorted. "Yeah, that's not going to work. You first."

She thought that Root would refuse and they'd stay in their standoff indefinitely, but Root only smiled in an obnoxious way and climbed through the gap.

B34R beeped a query and Shaw scowled at him. "I wasn't looking at--" She sighed. "Just stay here alright?" She hurried to follow Root back out into the main hall.

The first thing she saw when she dropped to the floor on the other side was Reese lying prone on the floor by the stone structure that Root had called the inner sanctum. The second thing she saw was a flash of light out of the corner of her eye that dissolved into pain searing through her entire body. Her limbs locked up and she dropped to the floor, twitching. Above her she saw Root's smiling face.

"Sorry about that, Shaw, but I really need what's in the inner sanctum and you're a little too competent to leave running around, but I'd rather not kill you, so--" Root squatted down next to her and pulled something out of her pocket. "--you need to take--" She held up a syringe that Shaw really hoped she hadn't just used on Reese. "--a little nap." There was a prick in Shaw's arm, and warmth flooded through her veins.

Shaw grit her teeth but couldn't manage any more movement and concentrating enough to use the Force was out of the question with whatever it was Root had given her fogging her mind. She watched as Root walked over to the stone door that Reese had been trying to smash and placed her hand on its surface. Shaw couldn't focus enough to sense what Root was trying to do, but even in her current state she could feel the ripple through the Force as Root's hand touched the door. There was a heavy grinding noise and the door swung inwards slowly.

Root turned and slipped her a wink and then vanished into the inner sanctum. The heavy stone door swung shut behind her and blackness swallowed Shaw down into sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went and found the list of what all the lightsaber colors represented and then proceeded to completely ignore it. Shaw got indigo because of her ISA call sign, Root got fuschia because it was the most extra color for a lightsaber I could think of without adding in glitter, and Reese got green because I needed him to have a 'standard' Jedi lightsaber color and I like green.
> 
> [This](https://cdnassets.hw.net/6c/33/eaa4e0934559a734973675d67619/robot-dog.jpg) is a rough idea of what I wanted B34R to look like.


	2. Chapter 2

Shaw woke up to the feeling of something poking her in the face. Her head was pounding, her mouth was bone dry, and her whole body felt sore.

"Stop that," she snapped at whatever was poking her. The poking stopped and there were a few worried-sounding beeps. B34R. She cracked one eye open to see the droid hovering over her, his head tilting back and forth inquisitively. "What the hell happened?"

B34R beeped and whistled a few times more and Shaw groaned as she remembered. The temple, Reese, the rocks, the syringe. Root. She was going to kill Root, or punch her right in her stupidly attractive face at the very least. She pulled herself up into a sitting position and took in her surroundings. She was still in the temple, so at least she hadn't been kidnapped. Reese was lying where she'd last seen him, over by the stone door which was now wide open.

"Can I get my pack?" she asked B34R. First thing was first. Her fingers were a little shaky as she grabbed at the pack that was buckled on to the droid, but she managed to pull her water container out and take a few deep swallows of the warm liquid. Not exactly what she wanted right now, but better than nothing.

"Let's go see what she did," Shaw said to B34R and she pulled herself up to her feet slowly. She felt a little shaky still, but her legs held and, after a minute or two, she was able to walk.

She checked on Reese (since he was on her way to the door anyway so might as well) and found him knocked out but still breathing. Probably drugged with the same thing she'd been drugged with, but maybe he'd gotten a stronger dose. Or maybe he just wasn't as good as her at fighting off the drug.

Her next stop was the door. The room beyond it was deserted, an empty chamber with an empty stone table in the middle. There was some thick grey dust in a pile on the center of the table but there didn't seem to be anything special about it and a quick search of the room made her doubt there was anything hidden. Whatever had been in there, Root had taken it.

"What the hell did you do?"

Shaw turned around to see Reese trying to sit up and failing.

"I didn't do anything. Root knocked you out and took off with whatever was in here."

Reese rubbed his head and winced. "And where were you when all this happened?"

"Don't see how that's relevant."

Reese almost managed a smile. "She got you, too, didn't she?"

"I could still kill you, you know. Let this Root take the blame."

Reese finally sat up. "You won't though. You always were more of a Jedi than anyone gave you credit for."

"Hey, screw you." She was _not_ a Jedi. She wanted nothing to do with what that title represented.

"Somehow I don't think Root moved all those stones herself that quickly."

Shaw clenched her jaw. Her secret was out. Partially out at least. She'd worked so damn hard to keep the Jedi from finding out and now that was over. "I suppose you're going to run back to the Order and snitch on me."

Reese rubbed his temples with his hands and grimaced. "Wasn't planning to. Are you going to try and kill me now to keep your secret?"

It had occurred to her, but.... "No."

"Did she leave?" Reese asked as he climbed to his feet.

"Well, she's not here anymore."

"Our ships."

Shaw hadn't thought of that. "Shit." She'd hidden hers as well as she could, but Root could use the Force and that would have helped her find it. If she'd blown it up….

"Can we call a truce until we can get out of here?" Reese asked. He patted his lightsaber where it was clipped to his belt over his robe as if to reassure himself it was still there.

"I've got no quarrel with you now unless you go all righteous Jedi Knight on me, in which case I'll break your legs and leave you in the jungle."

"No worries on that count." Reese looked a little steadier on his feet now. "Let's go see the damage."

Since subtlety was no longer a necessity, Shaw took out her annoyance on the rocks partially blocking the hallway, sending them scattering down the hall with a particularly sharp push from the Force. The way back to the jungle that she'd come in by was unchanged (she'd worried Root might have collapsed the tunnels, but maybe she'd been in a hurry) and soon they were both slipping out into the humid jungle air.

"Let's check my ship first since it's right here. As long as she didn't bust mine, I can even give you a lift to yours."

Shaw didn't particularly care if Reese's ship was blown to bits, but she was a bit curious what, if anything, Root had done on her way out. They picked their way around the corner of the temple.

"Son of a bantha," Reese cursed.

The ship was gone, leaving behind nothing but broken and scorched trees.

"Guess she liked your ride. Surprised that thing still flew after the way you landed it."

"What was wrong with how I landed it?"

Shaw just stared at him in disbelief. "Well, the good news is I can track your ship."

"What? How?"

"Stuck a tracker on the wing. As long as my ship is still intact, I can follow her." She turned and started back towards where she'd left her speeder bike.

Reese followed after her. "Then let's get going. Where'd you leave your ship?"

"Who said you were coming with me?"

"You're going to leave me here?" Reese asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, that's the plan. I don't much like Jedi and you're still after the same thing I am, so why would I bring you?" She hoped she wouldn't have to fight him; she was not feeling up to it at all.

"Because Root is a dangerous Sith and she took both of us down with ease once already. You're going to need my help."

It was a good point, but Shaw would rather have been savaged by womp rats than admit that. "She's not Sith."

"Then what is she?"

Someone like me, Shaw thought, and she hated how intrigued she was by that. "A Force wielder with less annoying scruples than your lot."

"I can see how that might sound better to you than the company of a Jedi." Reese hesitated for a second. "I think the Jedi Order could have learned a lot from you."

Shaw's jaw clenched. "Getting kicked out was probably the best thing that ever happened to me." She let out a long sigh. "Fine, you can tag along for now."

The speeder was a bit of a problem. It could manage the weight of two humans and a droid, but it definitely struggled some and couldn't get anywhere near top speed. The humidity felt even worse with a giant person seated behind her and the ride back felt interminably long. When Shaw finally drove the speeder into the clearing where she'd left her ship, she slammed on the brakes so hard that Reese toppled into her and then almost fell off the back as he tried to recover.

"What was that for?" he asked as he righted himself.

"No reason." She hopped down, lifted the light Force illusion she'd left in place, and breathed a sigh of relief to see her ship present and in one piece. Odd that Root hadn't blasted it, but Shaw wasn't complaining.

"Nice ship," said Reese as he looked it over. "How fast can it go?"

"Fast enough to catch up to your hunk of scrap metal." Her ship was a light freighter, small but fast, with a bunch of custom modifications she'd added over the years. She tapped in the code, hit the button to bring down the ramp, and went back to grab her speeder only to find Reese bringing it over for her. At least he was making himself useful.

There was enough room on the ship for maybe three people to live comfortably if a bit cramped, but it had only ever been just Shaw and B34R (and a few small utility droids). The spare bunk would probably have been covered in dust if B34R hadn't made the cleaning droid take care of it.

"How long have you had this ship?" Reese asked as he looked around.

"Uh, about ten years now, why?" Had it really been that long since she'd bought it out of a junkyard?

"Nothing, it's just--" Reese waved his arm around to indicate the whole ship. "--I'd have expected some kind of sign someone lived here."

Shaw looked around the common room of the ship. So maybe she'd never decorated or brought knick knacks back aboard. So what? It was functional without clutter, so why bother? "My spare jacket is hanging on the back of that chair," she pointed out.

"Yes, I see that now. It really adds some life to the place."

"It's not too late for me to dump your ass back out in the jungle."

Reese wisely shut up and followed her to the cockpit in silence. She punched in the take off sequence as she settled into her chair and felt the ship roar to life under her. "Once we get out of the atmosphere I'll see if I can find a trace on your ship." The tracker had a range limit on it, but she didn't think Root could have gotten too far unless she'd jumped to hyperspace (a very real possibility in normal circumstances, but Shaw could hope that Root wouldn't have noticed the fact she'd tampered with a few important parts on the outside of the ship when she'd placed the tracker).

Reese sat in the usually-abandoned copilot's seat and watched without interfering. He was certainly less interested in meddling than most of the Jedi she'd run into before and she guessed that if she had to be stuck with one of them, it might as well be him.

"What's this guy's name?" Reese asked and Shaw looked over to see him patting B34R between his antennae. She couldn't recall the last time someone had asked that.

"That's B34R. He's an astromech droid, or he was a long time ago. He's kinda unique now."

"I like how you designed him. I'm guessing you were the one?"

Shaw eased the ship off the ground and headed for the sky. "Yeah, I like tinkering with stuff in my spare time." Sometimes she had a _lot_ of spare time.

Reese nodded and didn't say anything else as they broke free of the atmosphere and entered the comforting blackness of space. Once they were clear, Shaw punched in the information for the tracking device and checked the radar screen.

"She didn't get too far. Landed on a moon about an hour from here. There's an outpost there and she probably had to repair the damage to your ship."

"It wasn't that bad, I thought."

Shaw decided not to mention disabling the hyperdrive. "I'll chart a course."

An hour turned out to be a much longer time with another human on her ship. Reese didn't seem inclined to talk or do much of anything, but Shaw didn't feel comfortable going to take a nap or shower with a potential enemy on board. She ended up cleaning B34R in the common room. Jungles weren't the best place for droids and he'd gotten mud in all the little crevices of his casing.

"Is this what you do all the time?" Reese asked as she polished B34R with a cloth and some oil.

She stiffened a little even though he hadn't sounded judgmental. "This, what? Cleaning my droid, or chasing annoying Force wielders across the galaxy?"

"Taking dangerous jobs for credits, traveling wherever you want in your ship." Reese shrugged. "You have a lot of freedom." She thought he sounded a little envious.

"I guess. Gotta pay the bills somehow, so it's not like I don't have to take jobs regularly and sometimes I can't be too picky about them." She had no interest in rejoining the Jedi Order, but she couldn't shake the idea that she should have been doing something more than stealing and smuggling. It wasn't like joining the Imperial Army was a real option for her, and definitely not one she'd consider anyway. And what else was there that fit her specific skill set?

"True, but you don't answer to anyone. No politics to navigate or toes you have to avoid stepping on."

Shaw finished polishing B34R and started putting away her tools. "Just what is going on in the Jedi Order that has you so eager to ditch?" she asked.

"Who said anything about that?"

"You've been saying that all day now. A bit indirectly, I guess, but I can read between the lines." She glanced up at him. "Aren't you a bit old for a rebellious phase?"

Reese had no expression that would have helped her figure out what he was thinking, and even opening up her awareness a little didn't tell her much (not that she'd really expected it to).

"Maybe the Jedi Order isn't something I want to be a part of anymore."

Shaw got up and dusted herself off and then scowled when she realized she'd just wiped oil all over her pants. Reese's fault, she decided.

"Didn't think you were allowed to quit."

"You can retire on their terms, but that's about it."

"Don't I know it."

Shaw knew all about how that worked. She'd spent a few months living in the very nice, but very heavily surveyed apartments that the retired and washed out Jedi were 'strongly encouraged' to live in. The Order had tried to catch her a few times after she'd run off, but she'd gotten good at giving them the slip and in the end they'd mostly given up since she didn't seem to be causing any issues for them. If they'd known about the self training and the lightsaber that might have been a different matter.

"Can I see your lightsaber?" Reese asked.

She'd been hoping he hadn't seen her use it. "So you can confiscate it?"

Reese looked mildly offended. "No, I was just interested. We all have to construct our own at some point, or inherit someone else's, but we work within the Order's guidelines for that."

"And you want to see what a rogue Force wielder's lightsaber might look like?" Well, it wasn't like she didn't have this place rigged in enough ways to take him out without her lightsaber. She pulled it out from under her jacket and tossed it over.

Reese took his time examining the handle and briefly activated the blade (though he very purposefully made sure to point it in the opposite direction and not raise it). "This is a lot more efficiently made than a lot I've seen."

"It wasn't at first. I've made some improvements over the years." It had been tricky to make well without the blueprints the Order guarded so jealously, but the basic idea had been simple enough. After that, well, she'd always liked tinkering.

There was a beeping from the cockpit.

"Sounds like we're almost there," Shaw said.

Reese tossed her the lightsaber hilt and stood up. "What's the plan once we land?"

"Find your ship and hopefully find Root."

Napus VII wasn't that large a moon, but it still maintained a decent-sized docking strip for ships outside the only real town of note. The town was also called Napus since no one could think of a reason to give it a better name, and was comprised of a cluster of small buildings spreading out from a marketplace in the center. Shaw had stopped here briefly on her way to the Jedi temple and she hadn't planned on ever coming back. She paused at the top of the ship ramp to squint out over the desert town baking in the heat.

"This place is a dump," Reese said as he joined her.

"I thought Jedi were supposed to be less judgmental than that."

"I was never a very good Jedi."

"Well, you still look too much like one. Ditch the robe. No one on this rock will talk to a Jedi."

The shirt and pants he had on under the robe were a little too nicely tailored to fit in well and Shaw ended up finding an old beat-up robe for him to wear over them that didn't look anything like Jedi garb.

"You got a blaster or something?"

"I've got my lightsaber."

Shaw rolled her eyes. "Listen, you show up here, you need to look like you can handle yourself, but you also need to not look like a wampa-rutting Jedi, okay? Let me see what I've got."

Reese's eyeballs nearly popped out of his head when Shaw pulled back the curtain covering her blaster wall. She was proud of her collection of guns, especially since all of them had been claimed during or after flights and not bought.

"I want that one." Reese pointed.

Shaw raised an eyebrow at his choice. Had he just gone for the biggest looking gun? It might be hilarious if he tried to fire the bowcaster--a wookiee weapon made for creatures even larger and stronger than Reese--and ended up on his ass, but he was supposed to be her backup here and Root was actually dangerous.

"Maybe try something a little smaller."

"I can handle it."

Shaw was doubtful of that, but in the end she let him take it anyway. It could be a good learning experience for him and the lure of watching a Jedi out of their element was too great.

Reese's ship was also parked in the dock and locked in some way Shaw couldn't break through. She thought about getting B34R to take a crack at it, but she'd decided to leave him on the ship to prevent any attempted theft and it wasn't worth leaving her ship unguarded to try to break into an empty ship.

"I can't sense her," Reese said as they headed into town.

"I could barely get anything off of her when I was standing right next to her. She's really good at hiding herself." Though Shaw wondered if she would have felt anything if she'd dropped her guard completely. It was easy to pick up stray thoughts and emotions using the Force, often unintentionally, and Shaw kept a very tight leash on her abilities to prevent that. She didn't need everyone's emotional crap in her head.

"Where to then?"

She was tempted to tell him to stay and watch his stolen ship in case Root came back, but that probably would have ended terribly and there was only one way into the dock from town so hopefully Root couldn't slip by them.

"Someone here will have seen her, and there's always one place to go for all the latest information in a place like this."

The local cantina scarcely deserved the name. It was predictably full of some of the shadier humans and aliens on the planet, all tucked away into tables in dark corners, but it lacked the life of most other bars Shaw had been to. It was too damn hot on this moon for anyone to want to cause trouble. Still, it was an impressive variety of alien species (even a wookiee who she saw eyeing Reese's bowcaster suspiciously), impressive enough that it had made her a little suspicious when she'd come through earlier on her way to the temple. She'd looked into the moon briefly and was fairly sure it was a stop on a smuggling route, one she hadn't been aware of. Definitely not a place to stir up trouble unless she had to.

Shaw ignored the curious looks of the other patrons and headed to the bar.

"We're looking for someone," she told the bartender, an alien of a species she didn't recognize at all. "They would have arrived in the last hour. Human. Long hair. Obnoxious." Things like gender and specific physical details were often overlooked or misinterpreted by aliens so she knew better than to try.

"We get a lot of visitors here," the bartender said without much interest.

That was definitely a lie, but Shaw knew the game they were playing here. She slid a few credit chips across the bar. "Maybe I can buy a few drinks while you think about it." She added a few more credits.

The bartender made a noise out of their second mouth that Shaw couldn't interpret, though her awareness of them through the Force suggested that she'd gotten their attention.

"Don't drink that," she warned Reese when their drinks were pushed across the bar towards them. "Not if you like your stomach lining intact." Most of the drinks here weren't very friendly to human physiology.

"Everyone is staring at us," he whispered. "Think there's going to be a fight?"

Shaw glanced over her shoulder at the room. "Not unless we do something dumb. They just want us to leave."

She added a few more credit chips to the pile on the bar when the bartender passed by again.

"There's a junkyard on the edge of town," the bartender said out of their first and third mouths. "Might be the only place on this moon with spare ship parts." They walked away to refill a drink for a patron further down the bar.

"Let's go," Shaw said. She turned to find Reese in an aggressive staredown with the wookiee in the corner and held back a groan. A fight with a wookiee was _not_ what they needed today. "Come on, we're leaving."

The junkyard was a few minutes walk away which was a few minutes too long for Shaw's liking. The heat on this moon was different from the humid jungle on the planet with the Jedi temple had been--overwhelming, dry, desert heat. Why couldn't Root have run to a nice temperate planet?

"That must be the place," Reese said as they approached a fenced-in compound near the edge of the town buildings. "You really think she can find something here to repair my ship?"

"There's a lot you can get done with spare parts. Any idea how she broke into your ship?" It had been bothering her since her brief look at the locking mechanism had informed her it was too tricky for her to bypass herself. Was this Root some sort of hacker as well?

"Considering the fact I've managed to lock myself out of it before? No clue. What are we going to do when we find her?"

"Kick her ass and get whatever it was she took from that temple." Probably not a plan a Jedi Knight would approve of, but Reese was the one tagging along here.

"Works for me."

Shaw fought back a smirk. Maybe Reese was more okay than she'd given him credit for. "I think you should go in the front, and I'll circle around the back and see if I can sneak up on--"

The sound of an engine roaring to life cut Shaw off and she only had a moment's warning to throw herself to the side to avoid being run over by a land speeder accelerating out from behind a building. She picked herself up from where she'd landed and turned to watch the speeder zoom away towards the center of town.

"Was that her?" Reese asked. He'd ended up in a ditch and gotten the robe he'd borrowed from her all dirty but looked otherwise okay.

"Yeah, that was her." She hadn't seen the face of the speeder driver, but she knew what Root felt like through the Force now and she'd gotten just the tiniest flash of recognition as the speeder had passed by. Shaw started back towards the town, walking as fast as she could without running.

"You think she got what she needed to fix the ship?" Reese asked as her hurried to keep up.

Shaw shook her head, thoughts racing to put the pieces together. "No, she knew we were coming. She wanted us as far from the dock as possible because…" Shaw cursed. "Because why fix your broken ship if she can just steal mine?" She broke into a run.

It was too hot for them to be running around out in the desert climate, but Shaw ignored the air scorching her lungs and ran full speed until she was back in front of the cantina. She slowed to a fast walk and wiped the sweat out of her eyes.

"Why'd you stop running?" Reese panted when he caught up.

"We need to be ready to fight when we get there, not exhausted from running. So we need to get there fast, but not instantly."

"You're not worried she's going to break into your ship?"

"Not really, no." She was more worried Root might damage it out of spite and then vanish again.

"She hacked right through the lock on mine."

"I have something better than a lock."

* * *

Root took a deep breath and eyed her nemesis through the 8 centimeter thick window on the ship door. "If you don't open this door right now, I'm going to cut my way in."

There were a few unimpressed beeps over the intercom and Root slammed her fist into the door in frustration. She could hack through any lock in the universe with enough time, but there was nothing to hack on this one. The normal locking mechanism had been overridden and the only way to open the ship was to manually release the door from the inside, a task which could only be performed by the irritating droid that her new friend Shaw had entrusted her ship to.

It was a clever move, she had to admit, but she didn't have enough time to appreciate it right now. She switched tactics.

"You don't understand, there are Imperial forces after me. I'm going to die if I can't find somewhere safe to hide. Would Shaw want innocent blood on her hands?" She conjured up an actual tear in one eye--an impressive feat in the middle of the desert--on the off chance the droid had some sort of empathy programming. It slid down her cheek and tickled her neck.

The droid's only response was to pop up a holographic recording of Root using Force lightning on Shaw back in the temple. Root groaned.

"What am I supposed to do now then?" she asked aloud, though she didn't really expect an answer. Her new friend had been very quiet so far other than telling her not to blow up Shaw's ship, and if it weren't for the warm glow in her chest she wouldn't have been sure everything had really happened. The only answer she got was the roar of a spaceship landing on the other side of the dock. There was a sick twist in her gut and a chill ran down her spine. She jumped off the side of Shaw's ship to get a look at the new arrival.

She recognized the Imperial shuttle that had landed by the extra red stripe painted across its wings. This was the last thing she needed now.

"Hands in the air."

She obligingly put her hands up without turning around. "Heya, Shaw. How's it hanging?"

"A lot better for me than for you right now."

Shaw walked into her line of vision, blaster drawn and aimed at her. The idiotic muscle-brained Jedi Knight, John Reese, was still with her (a bit of a surprise. Root had assumed Shaw would leave him) which meant she was out-numbered.

"You caught me. Great job! You should be very proud of yourselves right now. Now what are you planning to do with me?" Behind Shaw and Reese she could see the ramp of the Imperial shuttle descending. Maybe there was a way to play this to her advantage still, though right now Shaw's ship was still her best way out of here and she didn't think the pesky droid was going to have a change of heart…circuit.

"You know what we're after. I figure you're too clever to leave whatever you took from the temple unguarded on your ship, which means you've got to still have it on you."

Root refrained from laughing at the unintentional irony of the statement. Shaw didn't seem to have noticed the Imperial shuttle yet, too busy watching her for any sort of tricks. Root could feel her through the Force--though only in a muted way since Shaw had her own shields firmly up--and she got the impression that Shaw was annoyed but not as furious as the situation warranted. Well, that fit in with everything she'd learned about the fascinating ex-Jedi Apprentice. The only thing that had been a real surprise to Root was how poorly the holograms had done Shaw justice. Looking at her here in the bright sunlight with a smudge of dirt on her striking face and sweat beading on her perfect neck was, well, inspirational. Really it would have been a crime to have killed her back in the temple.

_Root._

The voice was only the slightest whisper in her ear, but it drew her back to the matter at hand. The Imperials had disembarked and she could see a squad of stormtroopers headed across the dock towards them, sunlight reflecting off their white armor. In front of them was a tall figure in black. Root scowled; her style was being ripped off.

"Shaw, we got company." Reese seemed to have finally noticed the newcomers.

"Yeah, I saw them when we got here," Shaw said without concern. "Figure they're after our friend here and probably why she's so eager to get out of here. Maybe we can make a deal."

"What sort of deal?" Root asked. They only had another ten seconds at most before the Imperial squad was within optimal firing range.

"Give us what you found in the temple and I'll take you out of here and dump you on the planet of your choice. Within reason."

"As great as that sounds, what was in that temple wasn't exactly something that can be traded."

"Halt!" The stormtroopers were within range now, blasters pointed at them. Shaw turned to the side to see them, keeping her own gun aimed at Root.

"Is there a problem here?" Shaw asked calmly.

The figure in black at the front of the group stepped forwards and pulled back the dark cowl of her robe to reveal an angular face with a predatory grin and blond hair pulled back in an efficient bun. There was a scar across her left cheek that had healed a lot since the last time Root had seen it. Martine looked far more pleased to see Root than Root was to see her.

"That woman is a wanted fugitive," Martine said. "You've done a great service to the Empire capturing her and we'll see you are properly rewarded once she's in custody."

"A fugitive, huh?" Shaw looked back at her for a long second as if searching her face for an answer. Root tried for her most winsome smile and tilted her head to one side. Shaw rolled her eyes and turned back to Martine. "What'd she do?"

"That's none of your concern, citizen."

Not a single muscle moved on Shaw's face as she continued to watch Martine expectantly. The stormtroopers shifted restlessly in the background. They had to be dying in this heat.

Martine looked disgusted. "Multiple murders, theft of Imperial property, impersonating an Imperial Officer, impersonating a Jedi Knight, commandeering an Imperial ship, and massive property damage."

"You forgot littering," Root pointed out helpfully. She thought she saw Shaw's lips twitch. One point for her.

"All at the same time?" Shaw asked. "How does one person mess up the Empire that good?"

Martine didn't look amused. "You have your answer, now stand aside."

Shaw exchanged a look with Reese that Root couldn't fully interpret, but she got the impression they had reached an understanding. "Afraid I can't do that. She took something of mine and I need it back."

"I looked you up when I saw your ship docked here and from what I read about you, Sameen Shaw, anything you have is probably stolen goods and as such forfeit to the Empire."

Root almost laughed. Wrong answer. Shaw looked back over her shoulder at her and Root felt the slightest push against her own Force shields and a question that sounded like a whisper in her ear. "Truce for now?" She nodded her head ever so slightly. Shaw shot her a final warning look and lowered her gun.

"Unfortunately for you, I don't have much love for the Empire, especially mouthy officers who accuse me of stealing."

Martine pushed her cape back enough to reveal the lightsaber hilt at her waist. "And just how is a failed Jedi going to stop me from taking her?"

Shaw raised her blaster again, this time towards the Imperials. "Guess we're all about to find out."

It was an overeager trooper who fired the first shot, but Shaw must have anticipated it and had already moved out of the way. Root pulled her own lightsaber out, activated it, and headed straight for Martine. She didn't much care if Reese got himself killed, but he was of more use to her taking care of the stormtroopers than being killed by Martine. He could probably sense what Martine was, but Root had actually fought her before and knew she was concealing how powerful she really was.

Root tuned out the rest of the fight around her as she approached Martine. A few blaster bolts flew at her but she deflected them almost without noticing. Martine's saber hissed to life, bright, angry red. Martine was somewhat of a traditionalist about such things, just like the Jedi in an ironic way.

"Can't wait to drag your corpse back to the Emperor," Martine hissed as she approached. "He wants you alive for some reason, but, well, accidents happen."

"Your existence is ample proof of that," Root said sweetly.

Martine snarled and swung her lightsaber at her with enough force and speed that Root felt the impact travel up her arms when their sabers met. She'd fought Martine before and found herself evenly matched, but it was like Martine was being driven by extra fury this time. Maybe she was still upset about her face.

They exchanged a few more blows, their lightsabers crackling as they met.

"The Emperor is very eager to get his hands on you," Martine said as she tried to force Root's lightsaber out of line. "I think he has great plans for you. It would be a shame if I had to damage you."

"I guess that means you haven't lived up to his expectations."

Martine only smiled and suddenly Root found herself winning the locked blade competition and pushing Martine's lightsaber away and--

She realized that Martine had taken one hand off her own lightsaber hilt to pull a blaster from her belt a second to late and the bolt hit her in her side at close quarters. She staggered back a step, gritting her teeth against the searing pain, lightsaber held loosely in her right hand still while her left hand flew to the wound. Martine smiled and aimed another blow at her with her lightsaber, swinging towards her unprotected left side and--

Root's second lightsaber hissed to life in her left hand and blocked the blow. Despite the pain, she smiled at the consternation and disbelief on Martine's face. The second lightsaber that she'd had hidden under her coat had a blade that was a light grey color that glowed with a strange light, a very recent acquisition for her. A gift, actually.

Root took a step back and brought both lightsabers up in front of herself with a flourish. Around her she was aware that most of the stormtroopers were down and Reese and Shaw were starting to take an interest in her fight. Martine cursed and retreated backwards into her remaining troops. With three Force wielders they probably could have wiped Martine and her troops out, but Root's legs were shaky under her and the pain was very distracting even using the Force to dampen it. She took a few hesitant steps backwards and felt Shaw step up next to her.

"You're hit."

She wondered if Shaw would think the second lightsaber was the treasure from the temple and take it off her and leave her here to die. It would be the logical thing to do.

"A slight miscalculation," she said through gritted teeth.

"Doesn't look fatal. Think she was trying to disable you rather than kill you."

"How considerate of her," Root said.

"There are much better ways to go about that."

A familiar crackle filled the air and a much different type of pain hit Root. She collapsed to the ground, the Force lightning making her limbs twitch uncontrollably. The last thing she saw before she lost consciousness was Shaw standing over her looking satisfied.


	3. Chapter 3

"This feels like a bad idea."

It was the third time Reese had said that and Shaw continued to ignore him as she led the way through her ship to the cabins.

"Put her in here."

Reese stepped past her to set Root down on the narrow bunk. Root was still unconscious--a mixture of shock and getting hit by Force lightning probably--but her eyelids were fluttering a bit like she was on the verge of waking up. Shaw had considered having Reese dump her on the couch in the ship common room instead of in a nice, clean bunk, but the cabins here had the advantage of having doors that could be locked. Might not be much use against someone as powerful as Root, but it didn't hurt to have the option.

"Are we going to talk about how you knocked her out back there?" Reese asked as he stepped back from the bunk.

"No." Shaw pushed past him and carefully peeled up the bottom of Root's shirt. The blaster bolt had hit her low on her left side and had likely been meant to disable her rather than kill her, but without medical attention it might kill her anyway. No telling how much internal damage it had done.

"There's no medical facilities on Napus VII or anywhere in this system," Reese said, probably thinking along similar lines. "None that can treat that serious an injury anyway."

The wound wasn't bleeding much, having mostly been cauterized by the bolt when it hit her. The skin around the wound was blackened and burnt.

"Maybe we should try to wake her up and see what she can tell us while she still has time," Reese suggested.

Shaw looked up at Root's face, scrunched in pain even while she was unconscious. She looked a lot less obnoxious and smug like this, and a lot more helpless. The only other person like Shaw in the galaxy, and she was dying in Shaw's spare bunk. Shaw stepped back and started pulling off her coat with a resigned sigh.

"Shaw?"

"There's another option." She tossed her coat to the side and moved back next to the bed. "B34R?"

There was a beep from the hall.

"Get us off this moon and somewhere safe." B34R couldn't pilot the ship in any real way, but he could calculate a simple take off and trajectory that required no maneuvering, and he could definitely plot a hyperspace jump since that had been one of his original primary functions. It was a little risky, but sticking around waiting for the Imperials to come back was riskier and there was no way Shaw was going to let Reese fly her ship.

"What're you doing?" Reese asked.

Shaw pressed one hand lightly onto Root's stomach, far enough away from the wound so it wouldn't do more damage. Root's skin was soft, but clammy under her hand and Shaw was suddenly very aware of Root's shallow breaths.

"They don't teach healing at the Academy anymore?" she asked.

"They do, but…. Can you really heal that?"

She knew why he was surprised. Force healing was taught along with other Light Side skills, but it was hard to master, especially hard to master well enough to heal this bad a wound on someone else.

"Guess we'll find out."

"Where did you learn all this?" Reese sounded bewildered.

Shaw half-turned to glare. "Can we talk about this later, like maybe after I've healed her?"

"Of course. Sorry."

The first thing she had to do was lower some of her shields. They weren't physical shields that could protect her from attacks, but mental ones that kept other Force wielders out of her mind and kept her from accidentally picking up other people's emotions and thoughts. Lowering them even a little made her instantly more aware of everything around her. She could sense the entire ship as B34R prepped it for takeoff, sense Reese standing behind her, quietly concerned, and sense Root on the bed radiating an enormous amount of pain.

She'd taken to healing naturally despite the fact her brief amount of training back in the Order had barely touched on the subject academically (and never practically). There were many ways to fight without the Force, but mending wounds without it was much harder to do without expensive equipment, so learning how to heal herself had been a priority. She rarely had healed others, and she'd hated it every time. The process necessitated a certain amount of closeness between herself and the person she was healing and she didn't like getting glimpses of someone else's mind that way, and loathed that they could potentially see parts of hers in return. Well, hopefully Root would stay asleep for the duration.

Shaw had examined the wound with her eyes already, but now she closed them and examined it again with the Force. It was easier to see the extent of the damage this way, and yeah, Root was going to be in some serious trouble if this didn't go well.

The basic idea of Force healing was encouraging the body to accelerate its own healing processes and stop the spread of damage or infection. Shaw started with the internal damage first since it was the most dangerous. She could see in her mind how Root was put together, how the blood flowed through her veins and how her body struggled against the shock of the trauma done to it. She could feel the Force flowing around and through Root like an ocean tide and she redirected that energy into Root's body, forcing her cells to start repairing.

In the back of her mind, she could feel Root's presence, sleepy but in pain, and due to the amount of effort and concentration it took to speed the healing process, she couldn't stop herself from picking up other things from Root's mind--little bits and pieces of her personality and distant flashes of memories that vanished before she could understand them. She got a sense of someone who was stubborn, but also changeable. At her core, Root was tough as diamond, but around that all the bits and pieces of her swirled and changed. Shaw got flickers of her mischievous side, her drive, her cleverness, her burning desire for knowledge, and, beneath it all, a deep, hungry angry that threatened to consume her. And then somehow beneath that something almost hesitant and lost. It was way more than she wanted to know, but there was no helping it now.

She'd heard it implied that corruption from the Dark Side could be sensed and she was tempted to try, but she didn't know what she should be looking for and maybe this wasn't the best time to be focusing on things other than her goal.

She felt rather than saw when Root woke up. Root's panic and hostility were like fists slamming into Shaw's mind, almost breaking her focus.

"I'm trying to help you, idiot," she growled without opening her eyes. "Unless you want to die?"

Root broke off her attack, but she didn't relax much. And then came the part Shaw had been dreading. It was as if Root raised her eyes and looked straight into her. Shaw'd had it happen before when she was healing someone and it always ended up with the other person shying away almost instinctively, as if they'd subconsciously been trying to find something in her and had come up empty.

Root's observation of her remained steady though, invasive but unflinching. Shaw did her best to ignore her and poured all her focus into finishing. Root's injuries knit themselves back together, not perfectly, but sufficiently. When Shaw opened her eyes to see her handiwork, the wound had closed leaving an ugly raised patch of skin that would probably form a nasty scar. Much of the burnt tissue around the wound had been shed to give way to new pink skin beneath.

She pulled her hand back--ignoring the way Root's stomach seemed to shiver beneath her touch--and got to the part she was dreading. She raised her eyes to meet Root's gaze, braced for the distaste she'd come to expect. Root's eyes were bright and shining though, almost excited. She raised one hand from the bed towards Shaw as if to touch her.

Shaw jerked back and moved a couple steps away from the bed, slamming all her shields back into place. She knew how to deal with rejection, but she didn't know how to deal with the fascination and...delight that she'd felt from Root.

Root struggled into a sitting position without looking away from her. "You knocked me out back on the planet."

Really? That was the first thing she was going to bring up now? "You knocked me out first. Also, I just saved your life."

"You did, and I'm very grateful for that. I think you may be a better healer than all the Jedi combined."

"I doubt that," Shaw said. She turned to see Reese's reaction and found him gone. Probably for the best.

"What now?" Root asked. "I got the impression you weren't eager to turn me over to the Imperials, but you still want something from me."

"What you took from the temple." It felt like a very long time ago now for something that had only happened that morning. Less important.

"I'm afraid that nothing I took is something I can give to someone else."

"What does that mean?"

Root tilted her head to one side. "Maybe you should get some rest before we get into that."

Shaw hadn't realized she was swaying on her feet--healing took a lot out of her. She didn't like the idea of leaving Reese and Root awake on her ship while she slept, but she wasn't sure she had much choice in the matter. Root still looked pale and shaky so hopefully she couldn't get up to too much trouble and she figured B34R was more than capable of keeping Reese from commandeering the ship.

"I might do that, but when I wake up, you're going to talk."

Root smiled, a contemptuous little curl of her lips. "Of course, Shaw."

Shaw fled to her own bunk, trying to scrub away the lingering feeling of Root in her head.

* * *

The door to Root's bunk was shut when Shaw woke up several hours later and Reese was sitting by himself in the ship common room.

"Any trouble from our new buddy?" she asked as she entered the room.

Reese looked up from the lightsaber hilt he'd been examining. It was one of the ones they'd taken off of Root, the second one they hadn't known she'd had.

"She tried to walk out here right after you went to sleep, but she only got about three steps before she passed out."

"Idiot. I may have healed her, but all of that put a huge strain on her. She needs rest." She motioned at the hilt. "Any reason you find that so fascinating?"

"Yes, actually." He motioned her over and she took the seat across from him. "It's really old, possibly dates back to before when that temple was built. The detail on the hilt is amazing." He handed it over.

"Forgot you were a Jedi history know-it-all," she said as she took it. Reese had always seemed to know everything about all the ancient Jedi places they'd run into each other at before.

The hilt was very simple in design, a smooth metal cylinder with little embellishment, but it was completely covered with incredibly detailed patterns etched into the metal. It was intricate beyond anything Shaw had ever seen before. She'd only seen the blade for a few seconds during the fight earlier, but the strange grey color of it had also been highly unusual. Shaw wasn't sure she knew of a stone that could create a beam that color and her fingers itched to take the hilt apart and see how it worked.

"I think she got it in that temple," Reese said.

"Could be. Collectors would pay a lot for something like this, but not the amounts that were being offered in the reward." There must have been something else in that temple, but what could it have been? She'd checked Root's pockets after she'd knocked her out and come up with nothing. "Who even uses two lightsabers at once? Sounds like the sort of stunt some apprentice would pull because they thought it made them look cool. She'll probably end up cutting her own foot off."

"It might have saved her life from what I saw."

Shaw made a disgusted noise and put the hilt down on the table. "Still say it's dumb." She got up and headed towards the cockpit. She could tell by the sounds the engines were making that they were in hyperspace, but she had no clue where they were headed.

B34R was plugged into the main console and out the front window she could see the twisting blue tunnel of hyperspace. "Good boy." They needed to be far away from the Imperials. She tried to avoid getting on their shit list, but she hadn't had much choice--Root still had her bounty and Shaw wasn't in the habit of turning people over to the Imperials no matter how much they annoyed her. She checked the screen on the console for the coordinates of their destination.

"We're headed somewhere in the Mid Rim," she told Reese when he joined her. "A planet called Cypso." It was on her regular smuggling route, but she wasn't going to tell a Jedi that.

"Is it safe?"

"For a given value of safe, but there's no Imperials there if that's what you mean."

"What about Jedi?"

She glanced back at him in time to see a hint of worry on his face. Well, he might have just caused some sort of political incident by attacking Imperials. There was a shaky truce between the Republic that the Jedi served and the Imperial forces that the Sith served, and, while clashes happened, they were supposed to be avoided.

"I wouldn't worry about running into anyone you know." She turned to face him. "You decided what you're going to tell the Council yet?" She'd like some assurance he wasn't about to spill her secret.

"I'm...not sure yet. I've got a lot to think about."

"Yeah, I bet. Well, guess we don't have much to do until my other guest wakes up. I'll see if I can scrounge up some food." She wasn't thrilled about sharing, but he _had_ helped her in that fight back there and he'd actually done a decent job handling the bowcaster (though she remained slightly disappointed it hadn't knocked him on his ass).

"That'd be nice. I haven't eaten in over a day now."

"I only have basic rations at the moment." She needed to restock badly, but she'd been hoping to get paid first.

"I'm sure that'll be fine." He hesitated. "And maybe I can ask you a few questions about...some things."

That sounded ominous. "Don't get your hopes up," she said and pushed past him to go find food.

* * *

Root was alone when she woke up. The door to the cabin was shut and the only noise was the hum of the ship engines. They were in hyperspace from the sounds of it. She shifted on the bed and winced at what were surely new bruises from hitting the ship deck when she'd passed out. She'd known that getting up had been a bad idea at the time, but she hadn't been able to keep herself from trying. The cabins on this ship were far too small for her liking, even with the doors open.

She sat up slowly and rolled the remains of her shirt up high enough to see the wound on her side. There was an uneven patch of red skin there now, not fully healed but well on its way. There'd be a scar probably, but no other permanent damage. She wondered if Shaw knew how hard it would be for most Jedi to heal this severe a wound so well. There were a lot of things about Shaw that she was curious about, even more so now that she'd gotten a brief glimpse of her mind. Shaw had been so...quiet. It wasn't quite the right word, but Root couldn't think of a better one. Not calm exactly, because she'd sensed the energy and drive that Shaw possessed, but compared to the raging turmoil that her own head felt like sometimes, Shaw had felt quiet and steady. It was fascinating. _Shaw_ was fascinating.

Dwelling on her peek into Shaw's mind could come later though. Root needed to find out where she was and what the other two had planned for her, but first….

"Hello? Are you here?" she asked tentatively.

_Hello._

The voice was soft, but strong in her ear and the warm glow in her chest pulsed steadily. Root felt her face split into a huge smile. She hadn't left her.

"I'm on Shaw's ship with her and that annoying Jedi Knight." Root assumed that She could see her, but she wasn't positive how this new dynamic worked yet. "What's next?"

_You will need their help._

"Both of them?" She didn't think she'd mind working with Shaw (in fact the idea was very appealing), but John Reese she could do without.

_There are a great many Sith and Jedi. You will need both Sameen Shaw and John Reese._

"John Reese is a Jedi Knight." She thought about how he'd been dressed back on Napus and how he'd participated in a fight that would have been forbidden for a Jedi. "Or he was anyway." Was She trying to build a team of Force wielders who weren't allied to either side?

_You must talk to them now. Gain their trust._

"And how should I go about doing that?" She had a couple fake backstories she'd concocted over the years to drum up sympathy or fear or whatever else when she needed it. She didn't think they'd fool Shaw (not anymore), but she didn't have any other ideas.

_Be honest._

"I don't think that's a good idea."

_Trust me._

"They're going to want to know. About you, I mean."

_Then tell them._

Root frowned at the wall. She didn't want to give up her new secret so soon, but if She said to….

"I guess I'd better get up then."

She got carefully to her feet, her side twinging painfully, and tested the door. It slid open with a hiss. Not locked, then. Of course Shaw and Reese would know she could blast the door open on her own so it didn't necessarily mean much that it was open. She could hear voices from down the corridor. She took a few slow steps down the hall towards the voices as quietly as she could manage. Just because she was supposed to be honest didn't mean she couldn't try and get a little more information before she announced her presence.

Shaw's voice carried down the hall. "--and where would I even have found someone to train me?" She sounded exasperated.

"But how did you teach yourself? How did you even know what you were trying to learn?" Reese's voice asked.

"Oh please, like there aren't accounts of the powers of Jedi Knights everywhere. Even tiny children can name at least three powers that Jedi have. I just...figured them out one at a time."

Root would have given a lot to have been having this conversation with Shaw right now, preferably with John in another galaxy. There'd be time for a more private chat with Shaw later hopefully.

"And the Dark Side powers?"

"I don't really think of specific powers as being Light or Dark. Figure it's more about how you use them."

"I can't think of a lot of non-violent uses of Force lightning. You used it as a weapon."

Root heard Shaw sigh. "I used it to disable her, the same way you'd use a stun setting on a gun which I've definitely seen your lot do before. And as for non-violent uses, I originally learned how to channel lightning to recharge a power cell when I was stranded somewhere. It's just another tool."

"It's powered by anger…."

"It's powered by the Force. Anger is a shortcut to it maybe, but it's not the only method. I mean I was a bit annoyed at the time, but not particularly angry. That persuasion trick the Jedi are so fond of is way more questionable in my opinion."

Reese responded, but it was too quiet for Root to make out. She took another step forwards and then froze when there was a loud, accusatory _beep_ from behind her. She turned to see Shaw's dog droid standing behind her in the hallway. The droid seemed to enjoy making her life difficult.

"B34R says we have an eavesdropper." Shaw appeared at the end of the hall. "Look who woke up." She walked over to Root and pulled up the bottom of her shirt without asking to look at the healing wound. "It's healing better than I thought," she said as she admired her handiwork. "Not a bad job at all."

"You'll have to let me thank you later," Root said, voice pitched low so only Shaw would hear. She smiled at Shaw and raised an eyebrow suggestively to make sure she got her point across. It had been pretty clear to her back in the hallway of the temple that Shaw was at least a little interested, and the glimpse she'd gotten of Shaw's mind earlier had reinforced that theory.

Shaw's eyes narrowed and she let go of Root's shirt and stepped back. "The only thanks I want are some answers. Come on." She turned her back on Root and headed down the hall the way she'd come.

The room Shaw led her to was some sort of common space for the ship and had a table, a few chairs, and a couch that looked like it had seen better days. There were some wrappers from rations on the table and a pitcher of what was probably water. John Reese sat at the table eyeing her suspiciously and both her lightsaber hilts were next to him. Good to see that they'd made it onto the ship with her.

"Sit." Shaw motioned at the only other empty chair at the table. Sitting upright didn't sound particularly comfortable with her sore side, and, even without that, she never missed an opportunity to ignore orders, so she dropped onto the couch instead and sprawled out across it.

Shaw just stared at her, clearly displeased, and Root bent her legs up a bit to make room and patted the couch in invitation. "Plenty of room, Shaw."

It was Shaw's turn to do the ignoring as she took the empty chair for herself. Root wondered if she reached out with the Force if she could feel the irritation that must be boiling off of Shaw right now and see if maybe there was some more...stimulating reaction mixed in with it. Whatever she was thinking, Shaw hid it well because her voice was calm when she spoke.

"What was in the inner sanctum in the temple?"

"That." Root pointed at the lightsaber hilt that sat on the table. Technically not a lie; only an omission. She'd told Root to be honest, but Root figured she could work her way up to full honesty.

Shaw didn't look impressed. "What else?"

"What makes you think there was something else?"

"The price I was offered doesn't line up with an antique lightsaber. Also there was something in that room. I felt...something."

Of course Shaw would have been able to feel Her to some extent, and probably John had as well. Having other Force wielders around was inconvenient. They weren't going to buy that the lightsaber had been the only thing in there, and even if they did, she couldn't let them take it away from her now. It had been a gift from Her, and she had no intention of losing it.

"There was nothing you could sell in there, and nothing your grumpy Jedi friend could bring back to his masters, either. You have my word on that."

"And why would we believe a Sith?" John asked.

"Don't play the idiot, John. The Sith are an order, an organization, just like the Jedi. Throwing around some lightning doesn't make me Sith any more than healing makes Shaw a Jedi."

She saw the brief hint of satisfaction in Shaw's expression, but John just looked frustrated.

"What are you then?"

"Someone a lot stronger with the Force than you, John. I have no--" She cut herself off. She'd been about to say she had no allegiance, but that wasn't quite true anymore. "I don't serve the Republic or the Empire." Neither of the two powerful ruling orders who each had a shaky grasp on half the galaxy were worth her time.

"What was in the temple?" Shaw asked again.

_Tell them._

Root tensed a little at Her command, but she wasn't going to disobey Her on this.

"There was a data chip as well."

"And where is it now?" Shaw pressed.

"I destroyed it." Root almost laughed when she saw their reactions. "Oh, don't look like that. There was nothing on it anyway. Or not the way you'd expect there to be. It was more of a prison." She hadn't known what to expect when she'd opened the door, but the data chip sitting on the stone table definitely hadn't been on the list of things she'd imagined. But Her voice, only a faint whisper before, had suddenly been so much clearer and Root hadn't hesitated to crush the chip to dust at Her command. "There was a...being of incredible power who'd been tied to it and sealed away long before the Empire or the Republic ever existed. The Jedi got their hands on the chip and locked it up. She was all alone there for so long."

"Who was?" Shaw asked. "Or what?"

"She never had a name the way we have them now and our language is vastly different than the ones used in Her time, but She tells me the closest translation to what she was once called would be 'Machine'. She said to call her the Machine."

"A machine? How was a machine trapped in a data chip?" Reese looked equal parts confused and disbelieving.

"The Machine's hardware wasn't trapped in it. Her...essence was."

She enjoyed how John's face was contorting more with every piece she revealed, and how, in contrast, Shaw hadn't batted an eye.

"You're talking about a fully sentient artificial intelligence, aren't you?" Shaw asked. "There was something strongly connected to the Force in that room, so it must have been this machine." She paused and frowned. "I didn't think artificial intelligences could use the Force, only biological life forms."

Root scoffed. "And who told you that? The Jedi? None of the artificial intelligence that exists today in droids is advanced enough to evolve into a life form that can use the Force, but thousands of years before us, there was one intelligence who spanned the entire galaxy. She could see everything, control everything--though She chose not to--and She could use the Force, not the way we do, perhaps, but She was very interwoven into it. When all Her infrastructure was destroyed She chose to become one with the Force, something like your Force ghosts perhaps, but the people who destroyed Her managed to trap Her."

"And you just freed her?" Reese asked, incredulous. "Some all-powerful intelligence that's linked to the Force?"

"It wasn't right to trap Her like that." It wasn't even close to a full answer, but Root wasn't ready to talk about the year she'd spent locked in a solitary cell in a maximum security prison with no one to talk to. She'd already had plenty of reasons to dislike small spaces before that and every second she spent trapped there had felt like an eternity. She'd coped in the only way possible during those days--going deep into a Force trance, drifting along on the currents of the Force--and then one day she'd found someone else there with her. Someone to talk to, to confide in, to trust. "She isn't hostile to us, John. She only wants what She wanted back before they imprisoned Her."

"And what's that?"

"To bring balance to the galaxy, and to Force wielders specifically. It was one of the purposes She was created for." Root didn't quite get why it was so important to Her, but after a lifetime of nothing but disgust for all the life forms in the galaxy, she was ready to believe in something better.

"Why should we believe any of this?" Reese asked. "Why trust her?"

Shaw cut in with her own question. "What would this balance look like?"

Was Shaw more inclined to believe her based on what she'd seen back when she'd healed her? Root hadn't been comfortable being that exposed to someone, but the glimpse she'd gotten of Shaw in return had made it worth it.

"Balance would be neither the Jedi nor the Sith. It would be something else." Something like Shaw, maybe, but she didn't want to say that aloud. Yet.

"This is insane." Reese looked shaken by the enormity of what Root had suggested. The Jedi had never been capable of thinking beyond their own rules so it wasn't shocking that even the simple suggestion of something different would blow his mind. Shaw, on the other hand, looked thoughtful, and Root felt a little thrill at the idea of recruiting her for this, and of getting to spend more time with her.

There as a loud beep from the front of the ship and Shaw got up. "We're going to have to put this on hold. We're about to drop out of hyperspace."

* * *

"Here."

Root turned to find Shaw standing in the doorway of the cabin, holding out both her lightsaber hilts. The ship had just landed and Root had come back to get her boots. She'd kind of hoped that Shaw might follow her, but she hadn't really expected it.

"Does this mean you trust me now?" she asked as she clipped them back on her belt.

Shaw scoffed. "No, it means you don't have what I want so I have no more use for you on my ship. This is where you get off."

"Well, _that_ sounds promising."

Shaw glowered.

"Nothing I said caught your interest at all?" Root asked. She needed more time. She knew she could win Shaw over eventually, but one brief conversation hadn't been enough time.

"Oh, it was interesting enough, but it also sounds like running right into trouble with the Imperials and the Republic for no pay, all on your word that this AI Force...god has our best interests at heart. If it even exists."

"She very much exists, Shaw." Root reached out and grabbed Shaw's wrist in both her hands. "Here."

Shaw tried to jerk away, but Root pulled Shaw's hand to rest on her own chest, right below her neck. Shaw's eyes widened ever so slightly and she froze.

"Reach out with the Force," Root instructed her. "I won't stop you this time."

"What, uh--" Shaw swallowed and licked her lips. "--what am I supposed to sense?"

"You'll see."

For a second she thought Shaw would refuse, but instead Shaw shut her eyes and pressed her hand more firmly against Root. It was a few seconds before Root felt anything, and then it was only a tiny tickle of sensation as Shaw reached out as cautiously as possible. Almost at once, the warm glow in Root's chest pulsed in response. Shaw's eyes shot open.

"What...what is that?"

"That's Her. We're...connected at the moment. She's been locked away so long that She needs time to regain Her strength and reintegrate herself fully into the Force. So for now She's reliant on me as...an anchor." She was extremely aware of the warmth of Shaw's hand against her shirt and how close they were standing in the tiny bunk.

"How does that work?"

"We're still figuring that out." She slowly released Shaw's hand.

Shaw left her hand in place for a few more seconds and then carefully withdrew it. "Well, you're going to have to figure it out without me. This is as far as I take you."

"And why is that?"

"I work alone." Shaw paused as if to reconsider her statement. "B34R and I work alone together. Other people are a pain."

Root tilted her head to one side and smiled down at her. "Sometimes a little pain can be fun though, don't you think?" Root took a step towards her and Shaw stepped back in response, almost up against the wall. "Under the right--" Root took one more step forwards. "--circumstances."

Shaw's back hit the wall and she stared up at Root, eyes wide but expression otherwise unreadable. Root rested one arm on the wall next to Shaw so she could hover over her, not touching but so close that Shaw would barely have had to move to press up against her.

Shaw stared at her blankly for a moment and then shook her head, a tiny smile on her lips. "Nice try." She pushed Root back and moved away from her towards the door to the bunk. "Get your stuff together because I'm not leaving you on this ship when I go."

She paused in the doorway. "If we ever end up on the same planet again and you don't knock me out that time then maybe we can talk about what a pain you are."

"Why not now?" Root asked and she was surprised to realize she felt far more disappointed than she'd expected to. Of course Shaw was powerful and fascinating and would make a great ally, but Root's disappointment felt like it was about more than that. It was the first time she'd ever found herself eager to spend more time with another human, and Shaw was trying to get rid of her. The nasty irony of it was almost humorous.

Shaw only shook her head. "Just get ready to leave."

* * *

Cypso wasn't the most advanced planet by a long shot, but compared to Napus it was much more developed. It was situated in an almost-neutral area between the main territories of the Empire and the Republic and, as such, was a major stop for people smuggling contraband between the two sides. The fact that the Empire had no interest in it and that, even though it was under Republic rule, the Republic largely ignored it had everything to do with how there was nothing with any intrinsic value on the planet itself. It was largely self-sustained by its local population with earnings coming from ships using it as a place to rest and refuel, and smugglers spending money at the local hotels and bars. And thankfully it wasn't as damned hot as Shaw's last two stops.

She took a deep breath of the cool air as she walked down the ramp to the landing pad in the hanger. The simple fact there was an actual hanger and not just a landing dock in the desert was already a drastic improvement. Her two passengers joined her at the bottom of the ramp, Reese still wearing the robe she'd lent him and Root in one of Shaw's shirts since her own had been ruined. Shaw was pissed she was probably never going to get either back, but she could live with that if it meant having her ship back to herself.

"What are we stopping here for?" Reese asked.

"Figured you'd be in a hurry to get back to the Jedi," Shaw said. "You can find a ship headed in the right direction here, no problem."

"Oh." Reese almost looked disappointed and Shaw wondered what he'd thought was going to happen next. "I guess I should go back then."

"What are you going to tell the Council?" Root asked quietly, and even with her shields up, Shaw could feel the worry rolling off of Root. She hadn't made any effort to hide her powers from Reese right from the start, so it must have been the Machine's existence she was worried about keeping secret.

"Honestly? I have no clue." Reese looked a bit lost to Shaw. "And what about her?"

Shaw turned to look at Root who returned her stare easily, mouth curled up in a knowing smile.

"She can find a ship to...wherever as well." She'd given Root back all her stuff, despite Reese's concern about her lightsabers.

"Your ship suits me fine, Shaw."

"Tough for you then, because I don't take passengers."

Root just kept smiling as if she knew some secret that Shaw was unaware of.

Reese stepped closer to Shaw and lowered his voice. "Are you sure we should just let her wander around on her own? You've seen how dangerous she is, and she supposedly has some ancient Force ghost helping her now?"

"And you want to, what? Hand her over to the Jedi Council?" She had no reason to like or trust Root, but she wouldn't hand the only other person she'd met like herself over to the damn Jedi.

"No, not that," Reese agreed. "But maybe it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on her for a bit? See if what she said checks out."

Shaw was very aware that Root could hear everything they were saying and a glance over at her showed her looking deeply amused. Shaw scowled at her.

"You want to babysit her, Reese? Knock yourself out. I'm done with both of you." She pushed past him and hit the button to retract the ramp to her ship. She'd left B34R aboard again to keep Root from trying to break in so the ship was as secure as she could make it. She turned back to the other two.

"Neither of you better be here when I get back." And she walked away before they had a chance to respond.

It was a lot chillier than she'd thought outside the hanger and she found herself wishing she'd brought a heavier coat, but there was no way she was going back now. No, better to return once the other two had wandered off (though she wondered if she wouldn't find Root attached to the hull of her ship like some kind of space parasite).

There was a light dusting of snow on the ground, already turning brown from the foot traffic, and the road was well on its way to being a muddy mess. At least it wasn't the damn jungle though, and she didn't plan to stick around too long. B34R had been smart taking them to Cypso specifically--this was where she'd picked up the job that she'd just failed to complete, and she needed to report on that before she found new work. Maybe she could take an easy job for once instead of ones that almost got her killed.

It was hard not to think about what Root had said though. Was there really some ancient Force AI out there now that wanted to topple the Jedi and the Sith? Or balance them or whatever. It sounded ludicrous, but she'd felt...something in Root's bunk earlier. The same something she'd felt back in the temple.

It was none of her concern, though. She'd already tangled with the Empire once over Root and she was planning to stay away from them for a good long while now and she definitely didn't need to piss off the Republic on top of that. Changing the galaxy wasn't her thing anyway.

She tried hard to ignore the small part of her that very much wanted to go back and talk to Root, the only other self-trained Force wielder with no allegiances who existed. Root was clearly nothing but trouble, she reminded herself, so this was for the best.

She was so deep in thought that she didn't realize she had reached her destination until she was almost past it. Root's fault, she decided as she slipped in the door of the largest cantina in town. The place put the Napus cantina to shame, but it still wasn't nearly as impressive as the ones on the Core systems' planets. It did have an actual live band made up of some sort of aliens that looked like furry boulders and who were blowing into glass tubes to make high-pitched chiming noises that Shaw could have done without. The bar was packed today and there were a few humans and aliens Shaw recognized--mostly other smugglers, freelancers, and bounty hunters. She managed to secure a small table in the corner for herself after threatening the two humans who had been there only a tiny bit and she slouched down in her chair and waited.

It was half an hour before Raftski showed up and Shaw was most of the way through her third drink. Raftski only had one of the glowing yellow eyes the Arcona were known for and a patch sewn over where the other would have been. Shaw had never asked how they'd lost it, but from what she'd seen, Raftski would have been a disaster in a fight. They were a go-between for rich people who needed dirty jobs done and the folks who did those dirty jobs.

"How'd the job go?" they asked her in Basic. She'd tried to learn the Arcona language before, but apparently humans lacked the right size and shape vocal cords to pronounce it correctly.

"Job was a wash. There was nothing in the temple, or, if there was, someone else got there first."

Raftski bobbed their head in a way Shaw had come to understand was meant to show disappointment or disbelief. "It's not like you to fail on a job, Shaw."

"Your client should have sent me sooner then. There were signs someone else might have been there recently."

"The client doesn't like being disappointed, I'm afraid."

"Well, that's too damn bad." She narrowed her eyes at them. "You wouldn't be trying to threaten me, would you?"

"No, no, never threaten. A concerned warning from a friend." She still had trouble reading all of Raftski's body language but she thought they seemed genuinely distressed at the suggestion.

"Just who the hell was this client anyway?"

Raftski shook their head. "You know I can't tell you that."

Shaw let her hand fall to her blaster so Raftski could see it. She probably wouldn't need to resort to actually shooting them since they usually folded for even the smallest threat (which was probably why they'd survived in this role for so long).

Raftski held up their hands placatingly. "Alright, I'll tell you, but only because I like you, Shaw, and also because maybe you should know about this one."

That didn't sound good. "Tell me."

Raftski leaned forwards and lowered their voice. "It was an Imperial Officer, a very high ranking one, and I got the impression he was here on behalf of someone even higher up. They wanted this badly, Shaw, and he also requested you, specifically for the job and asked me to tell him when you took it." They took one look at her expression and quickly added, "Which I didn't do. I told them two days after you left."

Yeah, definitely not good, though since she hadn't run into this Imperial (assuming Martine wasn't involved, though she hadn't seemed interested in Shaw specifically), maybe Raftski's delay had helped. She was still pissed though. "Why the hell didn't you tell me that before?"

"Same reason you took the job with no questions asked, Shaw. It was real good money." Raftski looked around the crowded cantina nervously. "You might want to lay low for a bit. Maybe let this, uh, what's the thing you say? Blow up?"

"Blow over, and yeah I think I'll do that." If it was really someone high up in the Empire then Raftski was taking a risk telling her. Maybe she'd be a little less quick to threaten them next time as a show of gratitude. "You got any easy jobs I can pick up somewhere really out of the way?"

"Ah, I have just the thing." Raftski pulled a small chip from their pocket and handed it over to her. She hit the button on the chip to pull up the small holograph with the job summary. Looked easy enough: pick up some supplies on one planet and drop them off at another. Both planets were in the middle of nowhere so the chance of running into Imperials was low.

"Thanks," she said, and downed the rest of her drink in one go. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to get the hell out of here."

"I wish you much luck and maybe I'll see you again, eh?"

"Can't get rid of me that easily."

She settled her tab and ducked back out into the street. The alcohol had left her feeling warmed against the cold weather and she made her way back towards the hanger feeling more positive than she had since she'd taken that last dumb job. Sure she was out a bunch of money and possibly the Imperials had some interest in her and those were really bad things, but those were problems for the future. Right now she had an easy job to do on her hopefully-empty ship and she could stop worrying about all the nonsense Reese and Root had brought into her life. If they thought she was going to get involved in the drama between the Jedi and the Sith, they had another think coming. Yes, she thought, she was well and truly done with that nonsense.

Someone grabbed her arm and hauled her sideways into an open doorway. A warm body pressed her up against the wall.

"Hey!"' She reached for her blaster, but hesitated when she saw her assailant was Root, looking incredibly worried.

"We need to hide," Root said, voice barely above a whisper.

"From what?" Shaw struggled against her, but Root held firm.

"From the three shuttles worth of Imperials who just landed."

"That sounds like a you problem and not a me problem." Though Raftski's warning rang in her head.

"They're after both of us, Shaw, and their orders are to take you directly to the Emperor. Alive."

"What the hell for?" Sure she'd pissed off some Imperials now and then, but nothing on the scale of things that got someone hauled in front of the leader of the Empire. She wasn't even sure what someone would have to do to earn that dubious honor.

"I think they may be after the Machine and since you protected me they think you're involved now."

Shaw groaned. "I should have handed your ass over to them when I had the chance."

"Trust me, Shaw, you'd rather have my ass on your side." Root followed up her ridiculous statement with an equally ridiculous wink.

"I can do just fine on my own, thanks." She shoved Root off of her and brushed herself off. "And don't try to follow--"

She stopped mid-sentence when she heard a familiar sound: stormtroopers marching. She'd recognize the sound of their boots anywhere.

"Spread out and find them!" Someone yelled from outside.

Root smiled sympathetically. "Like I said, we need to hide."


	4. Chapter 4

Root had pulled Shaw into the nearest building without examining it too closely, taking Her word that it was safe. Once Shaw had gotten over her initial annoyance, Root got a chance to take in their surroundings. It was a small hut, someone's home from the look of it, just the one room with a table and chairs by a fireplace on one side and two cots crammed against the other wall. It was a little too cramped for Root's taste.

"She says we'll be safe here," she told Shaw.

Shaw didn't look convinced. "'She' being the Machine? How would she know? And why would she care anyway?"

"She can see everything the Force touches, though currently limited to things in the same part of space that I'm in." That limitation would change soon, though Root hoped the Machine would want to stay connected to her. She couldn't imagine giving Her up now. "And She cares about us because She cares about all living things, but us in particular right now because She needs our help." She could feel Her presence in her chest like a warm glow and, even after a full day, it still gave her a feeling of wonder. She'd never felt anything like it before, like she was safe, cherished even. How could she not do everything for Her?

Shaw dropped down to sit on one of the beds with a sigh. "Great, well tell her to do something to get the Imperials off our backs. I have a job to get back to."

"It doesn't work like that, but She'll keep us informed and let me know if there's any danger." She took a few tentative steps towards where Shaw was sitting, not wanting to scare her off. They might be stuck here a while and this could be her last chance to be alone with Shaw.

"She only talks to you, huh?"

"We have a connection of sorts." She stepped forwards again so she was right in front of where Shaw sat on the bed. Shaw looked up at her.

"Yeah, I figured that part out, but what sort of connection?"

She took one more step forwards so she was standing between Shaw's legs. "A very close…intimate connection, Shaw." She decided to push her luck and let her hands come to rest lightly on Shaw's shoulders. Nothing changed in Shaw's expression and she made no move to brush Root off.

"What're you doing, Root?"

"Showing you what we have to offer."

Shaw snorted. "You're one of the strongest Force wielders in the galaxy by my reckoning, and you've got a line to something that's basically a god. I think I got the point you're a good friend to have, you don't have to do...this. Whatever this is."

This was not the smoothest seduction Root had attempted and she wondered why she felt slightly off balance now, as if this was somehow more important to get right. As if Shaw was somehow more important.

"Maybe this is just what I want to do. We're stuck here anyway until the Imperials leave the area." She put one knee on the bed next to Shaw's legs and tilted her head as if to ask a question.

Shaw swallowed heavily, her eyes tracking up and down Root's body "Shouldn't we be on guard in case they find us?"

"She'll let me know if they're close, and besides, She's hiding this place. Anyone trying to come in here will feel very uncomfortable before they even reach the door."

"That's a nice trick." Shaw slowly raised one hand and let it rest on Root's waist. Her thumb rubbed up and down once and then dug in with just the right amount of pressure and Root's breath hissed out. Root leaned down to talk directly into Shaw's ear.

"I know a few nice tricks myself."

Shaw rolled her eyes but grasped Root's other hip as well and tugged her down so Root was straddling her lap on the bed. "You're really lame, you know?"

"I'm not the one who soldered spikes on the side of my blaster to make it look more dangerous."

Shaw glared and then grabbed Root's collar and hauled her down to press their lips together. It was a more rough kiss than Root had expected but she wasn't complaining as Shaw nipped at her bottom lip and then deepened the kiss, her hands roaming up Root's sides. Root slid further forwards up against Shaw and tried to push her back on the bed, but Shaw grunted and refused to move.

Before Root could register what was happening, Shaw had flipped them so Root's back hit the mattress and Shaw knelt over her on all fours, her lips slightly parted and her breathing heavy. She looked almost predatory like this and Root's breath caught for just a second. She'd had this all planned out, how she was going to completely destroy Shaw so she would feel it for a week, but her mind seemed to have blanked out now.

Cautiously she lowered some of the tight Force shields she had up and reached out for Shaw with her senses. Shaw reacted so quickly that Root's head spun, grabbing both her wrists and pinning them to the bed on either side of her head.

"Don't," Shaw growled. "If we do this, any of this, you stay out of my head. Got it?"

Root nodded, breathless. "I understand, Shaw." She fought down her disappointment. She hadn't been trying to get into Shaw's mind exactly, just to feel some sort of connection, some ghost of what she'd felt earlier when Shaw had healed her. Shaw had felt so calm and solid, and yet so alive and powerful to her. The combination had been intoxicating.

"Good." A slight smile played across Shaw's lips before she leaned down to claim Root's mouth again in another bruising kiss. In unspoken agreement they both shifted around awkwardly so Shaw could get her leg between Root's and press their bodies together. One of Shaw's hands released Root and smoothed a trail down the side of Root's body to hook under a hand under her thigh and pull her up more firmly against her so they could grind against each other. Shaw felt so good on top of her, her breath hot against Root's neck. Root knew she should be more concerned about the Imperials who were out there looking for her, but right now all she could focus on was Shaw's body against hers, and Shaw's hand sliding between them to fumble with her belt.

Root had just put her free hand to good use up Shaw's shirt when She whispered in her ear. Root sighed regretfully against Shaw's lips. "Shaw, wait."

"Wait?" Shaw asked, clearly distracted.

"She says they've got John."

Shaw froze and then let out a long breath. "I don't suppose he can wait like fifteen minutes?"

"Afraid not." She slid her hand out of Shaw's shirt and took the opportunity to give Shaw's butt a squeeze while she still had the chance. "She thinks we'll need him."

Shaw sat back. "There's no we. I haven't agreed to anything." She didn't sound convinced though.

Root sat up and scooted back. "Let's start by getting John out of trouble first, and then maybe you'll give me another chance to convince you to help us."

"What sort of convincing did you have in mind?" Shaw asked, her eyes looking over Root and her rumpled clothing.

"Well, I was going to explain things further, but I'm not opposed to doing so in a more one on one setting. Either way, we need to move now."

Shaw got up off the bed and straightened her clothes out. "Reese better not get himself killed before I can kick his ass. He's been on his own for an hour and he's already in trouble? Stupid Jedi."

They slipped out into the street a few minutes later when She told Root it was clear to sneak by. With all the patrols of stormtroopers in the area, they'd never have made it all the way to the hanger, but John was only a few streets away according to Her. They stuck to the back roads and peered out of an alley to see John in the middle of a squad of stormtroopers, his hands tied behind his back. Simple bindings wouldn't be enough to hold a Jedi Knight, but there were a lot of blasters pointing at him, and….

Root recognized Martine immediately, but the other Sith she'd never seen before. She thought John might have known her based on the way he was staring at her like he'd seen a ghost.

_Kara Stanton. She was a Jedi who worked with John Reese a long time ago. There was an accident and he thought she'd died but she ended up in the hands of the Empire and is now as you see her. You must be cautious. She is very powerful._

"Good to know," Root said under her breath. She turned to Shaw. "We've got at least two very strong Sith out there."

"So I see." Shaw studied their opponents. "We're completely outnumbered without Reese free."

"Are you willing to give up your secret for him?" Root asked, because there was no way they'd stand a chance if Shaw wasn't willing to use the Force.

Shaw was silent for a long moment. "Obviously," she finally said as if she hadn't had to think about it.

"Then I have a plan."

But that was when Martine turned and looked right at them as if she'd known they were there. Her mouth curled into a cruel smile and Root felt her stomach drop. There went their advantage. This must have been a trap.

_Behind you._

She turned to see the other Sith, Kara, had somehow gotten behind them without either of them sensing her. Her lightsaber was already out, the same red that all the Sith had.

"Oops," Kara said with a sneer and Root heard the sound of stormtrooper boots behind them and Shaw cursing next to her.

_Surrender for now. You will die if you do not. I will find a way out for you._

The image of her tiny prison cell flashed in Root's mind, but she fought down the hint of panic that came with it and raised her hands. "Shaw, it's okay. Trust me."

Shaw didn't look happy, but she raised her hands with a disgusted look. "Meeting you two was the worst thing that ever happened to me," she grumbled.

The stormtroopers took their weapons and marched them out into the street where John was being held. He gave them a weak smile. "Fancy meeting you two here."

"Kneel, all of you," Martine ordered.

Someone kicked Root in the back of the legs and she fell to her knees. She smiled in the most threatening way she could manage when Kara came to bind her wrists in front of her, but Kara didn't even blink and tugged Root's restraints tight enough that they dug into her wrists painfully.

"You don't know how lucky you are, Shaw," Martine said as she stood in front of where Shaw was also kneeling and bound. "The Emperor has expressed a personal interest in meeting you." She looked over at Root. "Unfortunately for your companions, they're not part of the invitation. The Jedi we have no use for, and as for this one--" She stepped in front of Root. "--I now have orders to kill her immediately."

It was hardly the first time Root had thought she might die, but this time was different--the stakes were much higher. She could feel the warm glow inside her chest still, the only thing keeping Her anchored to this world as She regained her strength. If Root died then She would be lost, scattered, worse than dead. She felt a cold fury building deep inside her. Her own life meant nothing, but Hers….

"A shame," Martine continued. "You're so close to being one of us already, it would really take just a little nudge. It's impressive you've held out against the Dark Side this long. Impressive...and a waste."

Root almost laughed because her refusal to surrender to the Dark Side had nothing to do with any moral qualms she might have had. Giving into the Dark Side meant giving up control of herself. Far better to walk a tightrope and control her own destiny.

But to protect Her she was willing to do just about anything.

_Do not do this. I will find another way._

Root saw Martine take her lightsaber hilt out. One press of the button on the hilt and she and the Machine would be dead and Shaw even more outnumbered. Martine was so confident in her ignorance--she had no idea what she was about to do, the enormity of the atrocity she was about to commit, and if she had she'd probably have only been more eager.

Root let the fury build inside her. If there was one thing she knew about channeling the Dark Side of the Force it was how simple it was. If the Light Side was about tight control or avoidance of emotions, then the Dark Side was about letting go and sinking into something overpowering and furious. She knew exactly how much rage she had inside her, and knew it was more than anyone here could ever imagine. She let it run wild through her, consume her, fill her with so much raw power that it felt she might burst. She saw the surprise on Martine's face before she released her anger in a rush of power, throwing back everyone around her with a concussive wave. The ropes around her hands fell away and she was back on her feet and reaching out with the Force for her lightsabers where they lay on the ground next to the stormtrooper who'd taken them. She activated her personal saber, tucking the other away, and then she descended on the nearest stormtrooper she could find, slicing them almost in half. She saw more lightsaber blades out of the corner of her eye, blue and green and red, and some part of her that remained rational registered that Shaw and Reese were free and fighting the Sith.

She turned back to the stormtroopers and let her rage carry her as she cut a swath through them. She was aware of the blasters firing at her, but like this it was too easy to dodge and then kill before they could attack again. She didn't pause or slow down until they all lay dead at her feet.

She looked down at the armored corpses and felt nothing but satisfaction. How dare they try to hurt Her.

_Root. You must stop now._

It was a nice thought, but she wasn't sure how to. This was further into the Dark Side than she'd ever gone before and she couldn't see the path back.

"Sorry," she whispered, "but I couldn't let them hurt you."

_You cannot deny your anger, but you also cannot let it consume you like this. You must accept it._

"Accept? Not control?" She watched the other side of the street where Shaw was pressing Martine back with a series of lightning fast attacks. It was a bit sad she'd probably never get a chance to fight next to Shaw now, not like this. Not when the urge to cut down all of them was pulsing through her veins.

_Control is denial. Acceptance and understanding is balance._

"I don't know how." Across the street she saw Martine and Kara falling back with the few remaining troopers who'd survived.

_I can help you. Please let me help you._

Root was about to agree, but a noise behind her drew her attention and she turned, striking out without hesitation.

Her blade met resistance. Another lightsaber had stopped hers, its blade a vivid blue purple against her pink one. Shaw stood in front of her, between her and a terrified-looking human who must have been trying to flee the fight and who she'd almost just killed. Shaw must have used the Force to move fast enough to intercept her, though Root wouldn't have believed that amount of speed was possible if it weren't for the proof.

"Fight's over, Root. Stand down." Shaw still sounded so calm.

"I'm not...I don't know how to." Everything inside her was whispering that she should keep attacking, let her fury at the world drive her, but she held onto some edge of control with everything she had. She didn't want to hurt Shaw.

_Drop your shields._

That sounded like the worst idea ever.

_Trust me. Close your eyes and drop your shields._

She forced herself to step back, deactivated her lightsaber, and shut her eyes, trusting Shaw not to kill her. "Okay." It still felt like a war was raging inside of her, but the sound of Her voice helped her stay focused. She cautiously lowered all the carefully constructed shields she kept in place and felt the world spring into focus around her. There were so many scared people here and their fear felt good in her current state. Good, but almost overwhelming. Next to her, a few steps away, was John Reese, trying to keep control of the very strong emotions seeing Kara Stanton again had caused him. And then there was Shaw.

At first there was almost nothing from Shaw, as her ability to hide herself was even more impressive than Root's, but then, so faint Root thought she'd imagined it at first, she felt something more, like Shaw had opened a door just a crack. Root could feel the calm and solid core of Shaw, and, all around that, hints of other things: Shaw's excitement and enjoyment of the fight they'd just been in, her mild annoyance with the whole situation, the fact she was slightly cold still despite the fight, a hint of something that Root thought might have been concern (though for who or what, Root wasn't sure). But Shaw's presence was steady and strong and Root breathed a little easier with it there.

_Now look._

Root turned within herself and looked. She couldn't quite describe what her rage and fear looked like (angry red veins running through her mind perhaps), but she could see the path of it--her fear at losing Her and her fury that anyone would hurt Her, the same anger and fear back in her cramped prison cell, and, even further back, another room, even smaller, where she'd been locked away as a child. All around that, branching away and back were a thousand other interactions and events and realizations, all of it adding up to the pure rage that burned inside her now.

She wanted to look away from it more than she'd ever wanted anything before in her life, but seeing it laid out before her like this, understanding all the thousands of things that factored into this moment, made it easier for her to lock it back away.

She knew that the Machine didn't intend for her to keep this contained for forever, but for now it was enough that she could keep it from taking her over. She felt in control of herself again.

She opened her eyes. In front of her, Shaw hadn't moved other than to put her lightsaber away, but she was staring at the ground intently and Root wondered how much she'd seen this time. Had she seen all Root's memories? That was a bit...uncomfortable to imagine. There was probably a discussion that needed to be had soon, but that would only happen if Shaw didn't run off and leave her stranded here. Earlier, when they'd been together in the hut, Root had thought she had a chance at winning Shaw over, but now….

She looked away from Shaw over at where John stood guard, lightsaber still out. He met her gaze, and she was surprised not to find judgment there, nor pity. It was almost like understanding and that was definitely worse. She quickly turned back to Shaw.

"We should get back to your ship," she said when Shaw didn't move.

Shaw lifted her head but looked away from Root, back towards the hanger. "Yeah, I guess we should."

* * *

Shaw was grateful that neither of the others seemed inclined to talk as they hurried back to the hanger. The last thing she needed on top of everything that had happened was having to talk about everyone's feelings. First Reese had been having a minor nervous breakdown over his former partner (who he'd definitely been involved with in her correct opinion), and then Root had gone and…. A lot had happened.

"Are you going to let us get on your ship, or are we still on our own for transportation?" Reese asked as they entered the hanger.

That felt like a way more complicated question than it should have been and Shaw wasn't ready for complications just now. "I'll get you off-planet." They could figure out the rest later.

She should have suspected that it wouldn't be that easy, but she was still surprised to see a figure in a dark cloak waiting for them in the hanger, red lightsaber glowing ominously in the dim light.

"It's Martine." Shaw could still hear a hint of anger in Root's voice. They really didn't need Root to get pissed again and trash her ship.

"Get on the ship," she said. "Tell B34R to prep for takeoff and make sure Martine didn't sabotage anything. I'll buy us some time."

"I could help," Reese offered.

"No, you should get on the ship with Root." She felt like someone should keep an eye on Root right now, and as advanced as B34R was, babysitting an extremely dangerous Force wielder who was in the middle of an existential crisis was definitely not something he was equipped for. "I'll be right behind you."

"You'd better be. Don't do anything dumb."

"My droid isn't going to let my ship take off without me, so you'd better hope I don't." She glanced at Root, who had gone quiet, and saw her eyes looked a little unfocused. Shock maybe, or maybe she was just listening to the Machine again. Either way, no good could come from her getting in another fight. "Go. Now."

Reese and Root started towards her ship, keeping to the far wall, and Shaw headed by herself out to meet Martine in the middle of the hanger.

"Not all rushing me at once then?" Martine asked. "It's only me now."

"I don't need help to handle you." She activated her lightsaber and the red and blue glows of their blades lit up the space around them.

"What if I told you this was a trap?"

Shaw had wondered about that, but she couldn't see any way it could have been one unless Martine had something completely unexpected up her sleeve. In which case they were screwed anyway.

"Is it?"

"No, I actually came to find you." Martine started moving, circling slowly to Shaw's right, and Shaw moved away from her in the same circle. "I thought maybe we could have a more private chat."

"About what?"

Martine smiled, showing her teeth bathed red in the light. "You know the Emperor had never mentioned you before I called to report on Napus, and suddenly you became his highest priority, even over killing your violent little friend."

"I have no clue why that old bantha ballsack would be interested in me." Though it was curious that Martine hadn't had orders to find her originally. The fact an Imperial had been behind getting her sent to the temple in the first place had made her assume it was a trap, but maybe Martine had initially been sent after Root and not her. Whatever the case, Martine clearly hadn't known about it.

"Really," Martine said, "I wonder…."

Martine attacked without warning, her blade slicing a glowing streak through the air towards Shaw's side, but Shaw had felt her intent and blocked her easily. Their blades hissed as they crossed and Martine leaned forwards to speak through their deadlock. "Just what is so special about you, Shaw? Root is already well on her way to the Dark Side, if she's not gone already, and she's also unusually powerful, but the Emperor wants her dead as of a few hours ago and wants you instead."

Martine must not have known about the Machine, Shaw realized--though that wasn't too surprising--but the Emperor might have? She needed to ask Root about that, though she wasn't sure what to say to Root right now.

A prickling sensation on the back of her neck made Shaw aware of Martine's intent. She scoffed. Martine was trying to read her mind? Really? She had all the grace of a drunken tauntaun when it came to this sort of thing. Shaw didn't even bother to strengthen her shields against the feeble attack.

Martine's next attack was another swing of her lightsaber, the blade flashing a red arc towards Shaw. It would have been easy to block the attack, but instead Shaw launched herself up into the air with the aid of the Force and flipped easily over Martine's head to land behind her, closer to the ship. Martine spun around to face her, surprise on her face.

"It's clear that you've continued your Force training without the Jedi, but you're more powerful than I expected. Perhaps that's why the Emperor wants you."

Shaw heard the ship engine warming up behind her. Time to end this. She swung at Martine again, a slow strike that was easy to block, and their blades locked again as they each tried to force the other to back off

"Tell the Emperor that I'm not interested in joining his club of bootlickers," Shaw called over the hiss of their blades. She readied herself for her next move.

Martine's eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to respond, but Shaw disengaged her blade suddenly, causing Martine to stumble. Shaw lashed out with the Force and pushed as hard as she could and was rewarded with Martine sailing backwards into the hanger and skidding across the floor.

Shaw risked a glance back at the ship to see the engines were starting to glow. It was time to get the hell out of here.

A warning flared through the Force and made her spin back around and swing her saber blade up just in time. Lightning cracked across the dark hanger leaving glowing spots in Shaw's vision and she instinctively moved her blade to deflect it. It was almost fascinating the way the lightning crawled across the room the meet her blade and then just...stopped, as if absorbed. She hadn't known a lightsaber blade could counter Force lightning, but it made sense. Martine broke off the attack when it was clear that it wasn't working and Shaw backed away from her towards the ship ramp, only pausing to make a rude gesture before she hurried up the ramp into the relative safety of the ship.

"Get us out of here!" she yelled as she hurried towards the cockpit. There was an answering trill from B34R and the ship lurched to life even before Shaw dropped into the pilot's seat. She grabbed the controls and took over from B34R, angling them towards the hanger door. She thought she caught a glimpse of Martine down on the floor, but she couldn't be sure.

"She says there's no ambush waiting for us in orbit."

Somehow in all the excitement, Shaw hadn't fully registered that Root was sitting curled up in the copilot's chair, her legs pulled up to her chest. "The Machine can see that?"

"She can see a lot more than that, Shaw, but right now the part that matters is that the Imperials came here on three troop transports and the star destroyer they originated from it still too far out to keep us from jumping to hyperspace." Root sounded normal again, though Shaw wasn't sure if that meant much.

"Good to know." The ship accelerated as they rose higher above the ground. Shaw fiddled around with the controls, debating exactly where it was she wanted to run to next. There were still too many unknowns. She finally made a choice, punched it in, and let B34R take over plotting the course for her. As the planet's atmosphere gave way to the blackness of space, she let out a sigh of relief. She wouldn't feel fully safe until they were in hyperspace, but this was a good start.

"Any pursuit?" Reese poked his head in.

"No, we seem to be in the clear. Where were you?"

"I was trying to figure out how to make your gun turret work so I could give you some backup. Your controls are really strange though. Never seen anything like them before."

"Yeah, that's because I made them better."

"How is less intuitive better?"

"Not my fault you're not smart enough to figure them out."

Root got up without a word and slipped past Reese into the ship corridor. Shaw watched her go before turning back to the ship console.

"What exactly happened back there?" Reese asked quietly. "It looked like she fully gave in to the Dark Side, but...I'm not sure. Did you do something?"

Shaw clenched her jaw. She hadn't known what the hell she was going to do when Root had shut her eyes like that, but then she'd heard a voice, a voice that couldn't have been anything else but the Machine that Root had spoken of, and the voice had asked, no, _pleaded_ with her to help Root.

At least she had proof that the Machine existed now, and the brief contact she'd felt had given her the impression that whatever the Machine was, she wasn't a threat.

"Root is okay for now," she said finally and hoped it was true. "The Machine is...keeping her in check." Not quite true, but maybe it was an answer Reese would accept.

"What did you do back there when Root stopped fighting? I felt...something."

Shaw turned to glare at him. "You wanna talk about your former partner, Kara Stanton? Sounded like you two had some unfinished business." She hadn't overheard much during the fight, but enough to figure out there was some complicated history there.

Reese grimaced. "Okay, fair, but I just wanted to know if I needed to be worried. Sleep with one eye open."

"Why would you? Aren't you going to run back to the Jedi as soon as you have a chance?"

Reese sat down heavily in the seat next to her. "I don't think so. I don't think I can go back anymore."

"Why not? I mean maybe you'll get yelled at, but it's not like your lot has any love for the Sith."

"Because I don't think I belong there anymore. I don't think I've belonged there for a while. All my instincts are telling me it's time to move on and that this is where I'm supposed to be right now. If there's even a chance that what Root said is possible…."

Shaw had resigned herself to the fact she was probably stuck with Root for at least the immediate future, but now she was supposed to share her ship with two people? Well, if they were really going to have Imperials after them it didn't hurt to have another person on their side and Reese could handle himself in a fight. He'd even shown some skill with the bowcaster back on Napus VII.

She gave in to the inevitable. "You and Root can fight over the second cabin."

"I'll take the couch."

B34R beeped to let her know the jump had been calculated, and Shaw reached up to pull the lever to jump them to hyperspace. The world spun and vanished around the ship, leaving the twisted blue tunnel of hyperspace. Shaw sat back in her chair, relaxing.

"Are you going to talk to her?" Reese asked cautiously. "She seemed a bit...off. I've been in a bad spot before, maybe not that bad, but still. She could probably use someone to talk to."

"Maybe you should go use your vast Jedi wisdom on her then."

"I think she'd rather talk to you."

Talking about it was the last thing Shaw wanted to do, but if she was going to be stuck on a small ship with Root then it was better to sort this out quickly. "Fine." She got up and left Reese and B34R in the cockpit together.

Root was back in the cabin that Shaw had put her in earlier, sitting cross-legged on the bunk and leaning back against the ship hull with her eyes shut. She opened them when Shaw knocked on the door frame.

"You could shut the door if you wanted to sleep, you know."

"I prefer to leave it open."

"Right." That seemed obvious now that Shaw thought about it. The bits and pieces of Root's life that she'd unwillingly witnessed had made her dislike for close spaces make a horrible sort of sense. Shaw could still see the image of Root as a child, locked in a tiny closet, and then later the jail cell (though she had no clue how Root had ended up there). None of the other things she'd seen had been much better. Scrawny teenaged Root standing over a dead body with a knife, slightly older Root cutting someone down with a poorly-made lightsaber, an endless string of cruelty and violence as Root had witnessed some of the worst the galaxy had to offer and returned it in kind, and somewhere under all that was still that small girl, full of rage but looking desperately for something better.

Shaw didn't do apologies, but she almost wanted to for how intrusive she'd felt. She'd known in that moment that if she'd backed away, Root might not have won out and regained control. She'd drawn on the strength that Shaw had offered and somehow, against everything the Jedi taught wasn't possible, she'd come back.

What the hell was Shaw supposed to say to her now?

"It's okay, Shaw," Root said quietly. "I'll leave when we land if that's what you want."

It wasn't what she wanted, but she wasn't sure why. She'd felt a pull towards Root all the way back in the temple, but that was only part of it. There was something about her that made Shaw unwilling to kick her out, some unfamiliar need to keep her here with her. Had Root done something to her? Had the Machine?

"I think that…I mean the Imperials are after all of us now and we only survived because we all fought them off. Maybe we should stick together. For now."

Root's face lit up and Shaw looked away again, embarrassed for some damn reason.

"What happened back there…." She wasn't sure what she wanted to ask. "You did something to pull yourself back, but I couldn't tell exactly what."

At first she thought Root wasn't going to answer based on the way her face shut down, but after a minute Root sighed. "She told me that using the Force shouldn't be about controlling or suppressing your emotions the way the Jedi do, and it also shouldn't be about surrendering to them like the Sith. She said I had to acknowledge them, understand them. She said I needed to find peace with myself, that all the Jedi need to, and any of the Sith that still can. I'm...not there yet, not by a long shot, but for now it's okay."

"Huh, I guess that makes sense." Shaw had never felt the need to detach herself from her emotions the way the Jedi did, nor fight to keep them from consuming her the way they did the Sith, but then she wouldn't have had to for the very same reason the Jedi had expelled her. "Where do I fit in all of this?"

Root smiled. "She says you're the most important part, though I don't know what She means by that." She sat up a little straighter. "She wants us to work together. She told me you're looking for a purpose, you and John both. She can give you that."

"Right now I'm looking for some credits so I can buy some food."

"And after that?"

"After that I guess we'll see."

Root's smile widened. "It doesn't have to be bad, us working together. We were interrupted earlier, but if you wanted…." The invitation was clear in her voice.

"Maybe later," Shaw said, and she meant it because it was clear now that there was going to be a later and Root would be part of whatever that was.

"Of course," Root said. And Shaw found herself smiling back.

* * *

The planet Shaw had landed them on for whatever petty smuggling job she insisted they needed to do for credits was even more pathetic than Napus VII had been, but Root didn't mind at all.

"Can't believe I'm a smuggler now," Reese said as they stepped out of the ship into the sunlight.

"Smuggler's assistant," Shaw corrected. She glanced over at Root quickly and then away again, and Root felt the warmth in her chest spread even more. She brushed her knuckles over the hilts of her lightsabers at her belt and readied herself to follow Shaw to wherever their future led.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end of the fic but hopefully not the end of the story. i obviously left plenty of room to write more and i'm hoping that i do. i've added this to a series which you can subscribe to if you're interested in more, and any new stuff i write for this au will go in there. hope you enjoyed!


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